


I'm In Your Mirror

by sorrens



Series: Hogwarts Bound [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Beez is non binary, F/M, Gabriel is a dick, Hufflepuff!Crowley, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Slytherin!aziraphale, and Crowley has a pet snake, idiocy as a plot point, newt is a mess, no betas we face armageddon like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-23
Packaged: 2020-10-13 18:10:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 21,872
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20586833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sorrens/pseuds/sorrens
Summary: Second entry in the "Hogwarts Bound" 'verse sees Crowley and Aziraphale beginning third year and rekindling their friendship after the fallout. Expect an appearance from the Mirror of Erised, Peeves, and some extraordinary pining from both parties as they discover their place in the world.





	1. Gardening Techniques; Explosive or Otherwise

**Author's Note:**

> If you haven't read the first in the series I suggest starting there because it's vital for knowing what's going on (and they're cute lil first years). The title is a mash up of one of Crowley’s canon fave songs “I’ll be your mirror” by Velvet Underground and the Mirror of Erised, which will be making an appearance. Can you guess what’s in the boy’s mirrors?

Anathema lived in a small village an hour out from London. Jasmine Cottage sat in amongst sprawling fields — close enough to the village centre to be within walking distance but also secluded enough for Anathema’s dad to indulge in his habit of violent magical-driven gardening away from prying muggle eyes.

It went something like this: Rincewind Device stalked through the lush foliage in the Device’s back yard, looming over marigolds so that they perked up in fright, hissing subtle threats at the roses until they shook off the aphids crawling on their petals, and then continued to shake out of fear indefinitely. If he found a plant that didn’t meet his exceptions, he’d pull out his wand and violently expel it over the garden fence.

Crowley was transfixed.

The man was a tad on the eccentric side, which wasn’t a surprise having known his daughter. He had long greying hair pulled back in a massive plait and a beard that tended to drag through the dirt when he gardened. They’d decided to visit Anathema’s house for the summer after much debate. She had plenty of spare rooms since her mother passed away (“Shush, I don’t need your pity”) and cited that her father tended to get lonely. He was more than happy to host four teenagers for the length of the holidays.

Newt had already planned to visit, but Crowley and Aziraphale had to work out how to communicate to the Crowley’s that they wouldn’t be coming home for the break. Eventually they had decided to track down Hastur on the train. Aziraphale spoke, explaining that they were going to go to a friend’s house and the boy’s eyes narrowed, travelling between his brother and his adopted brother, who were standing together like they hadn’t been avoiding each other for the last year.

“Righttttt,” he said, like everything wasn’t alright. “I hope you know what you’re doing.” He levelled Aziraphale with a glare.

“Naturally, my dear.” Aziraphale replied primly, and the duo walked back to their carriage, leaving Hastur to stare blankly in their wake.

“He’s going to rat you out to my parents and they’re going to disown you.” Crowley said sagely.

Aziraphale hummed in assent.

“Good, I found it terribly boring spending the holidays with Hastur and Beez anyway.” He slipped back in to the compartment whilst Crowley processed this information.

They had talked practicalities for the rest of the journey back to London. Aziraphale had regained some of his warmth, and seemed genuinely happy when he looked at his friend. But there was something strained in it all, that neither could articulate. They were both beginning the long process of becoming reacquainted, and it was going to come as a surprise to each other how much the other boy had changed.

⁂

The three boys had set up in the living room that was lined with shelves containing curious crystals and talismans. Anathema was explaining the purpose of them all whilst the others unpacked their stuff and set up the makeshift beds, but the explanation was lost on them, and then Crowley made the mistake of calling a 17th century demon protection amulet “pretty” and Anathema abandoned her lesson in disgust.

They looked odd in their muggle clothes, which they’d changed in to as the Hogwarts Express pulled in to King’s Cross. It was difficult to tell Anathema had swapped her robe out for a supposedly “muggle” victorian-style dress, but the boys had each donned jeans and a jumper that they’d thought looked suitable. They were appropriate attire in a way, but perhaps not for their age.

Newt wore a lumpy mustard sweater with offensive green elbow patches. He’d defended his choice to Crowley, claiming that his dad used to wear it during the holidays when he was a kid.

Aziraphale always dressed like a librarian from 1900, which suited him quiet nicely, but Crowley found it quite jarring compared to the green and black cape he’d been so accustomed to seeing. The teen’s sandy sweater vest and neatly pressed slacks made him look softer than he did at school, more like the Aziraphale Crowley had known before.

Crowley had always maintained that the only thing that muggles got right was Emo fashion, much to his parents dismay. The boy had chosen some tight black skinny jeans and a low cut shirt to saunter off the train in, until Aziraphale had pulled him aside and, with one gaze that swept up his friend’s form, decided to reprimand him for not wearing a jacket. Not to worry, he dug out a black blazer to shut the Slytherin up.

“I have to call my parents.” Newt held up a mobile phone, that had seemingly appeared from nowhere. Truth was, he kept it hidden from the other students during term time in case they wanted to pull it apart or blow it up, Newt could and had achieved that all by himself thank-you-very-much.

He bustled out and left Aziraphale and Crowley alone in the room.

There was still something between them that was unsaid, and it took all of Crowley’s effort to not break in to a fresh wave of apologies. But that wasn’t necessary, the boy told himself, Aziraphale had forgiven him for his mistake. So why did he still feel so unsettled?

“It wasn’t fun.” Aziraphale piped up, absentmindedly folding his school things so that he didn’t have to look at his friend. “Hanging out with Hastur and the like.” Yes, he’d mentioned that in the passing on the train. Crowley found himself holding his breath, hoping the angel would elaborate further.

“They’re quite…” he seemed to be fishing for the right word.

“Mean?” Crowley supplied and the other nodded.

“They care about each other, and they cared about me. It was sort of like being in a gang, really. All in. Us against the world.” Crowley couldn’t imagine the angel being part of a gang, imagining him cowering in the corner whilst Hastur beat up some Ravenclaws who’d looked at him funny — if that’s the kind of thing the boy did. Crowley didn’t know what Hastur actually got up to, and made a mental note to ask sometime.

Crowley nodded to show he was listening, and Aziraphale continued.

“They didn’t respect what I liked to do, though. They laughed at my books and my strolls in the grounds. They thought it was stupid that I listened in class and after a while I started doing my homework in secret so that they’d stop taunting me about it.”

“That’s where you went.” Crowley realised softly. “You seemed to disappear from the castle for a few months there.”

“I spent most of my time studying in the restricted section. Madam Pince took pity on me after Hastur began coming in to the library to harass me and let me go back there instead. It’s a terrible place.” He finished thoughtfully. “Some of the books scream and rattle on the shelves. It feels evil.”

He pulled himself out of his thoughts.

“Anyway, what I meant to say was, they were never you.” He frowned at the red head. “It made me miss what I had. Some who’d listen to me, and let me collect silly books and walk with me in the grounds without slurring that it “was gay.”” He flinched at the last words.

“I was such an idiot to get so worked up by a tiny bit of jealousy.”

“I was such an idiot too.” Crowley countered rather forcefully. “Don’t blame yourself, angel.”

Aziraphale’s face split in to a bright smile.

“I guess we’re both idiots.” He walked over and grabbed Crowley’s arm. “Now, I saw you watching Rincewind in the garden and I figured you might have a few questions for him on his technique?”

Crowley laughed, his friend still knew him too well.


	2. Us and The Them

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At Jasmine Cottage, the friends encounter a group of muggle children called "The Them" who flaunt the laws of magic. Crowley nearly gets burnt at the stake. Fun times abounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kids-being-kids fluff - although Pepper does carry a lighter with her. That's a story for another time.

They settled in quickly at Jasmine Cottage. Newt was desperate to get on the Quidditch team in his fifth year, perhaps to divert his parent’s attention away from their fixation on him becoming prefect — he wasn’t exactly prefect material, if Newton _had_ to be described as a material it would be something highly flammable and unable to catch Quaffles. Anathema spent most of her time throwing a football to her boyfriend, who fumbled on most occasions but was, on occasion, successful. This would elicit a wave of cheers from the gardeners and spectators alike. “Now you have to learn to do this on a broomstick.” Anathema said eerily, and Newt visibly paled. Whilst this train wreck was unfolding, Crowley screamed at plants and Aziraphale sat on the back porch with a cup of tea and a book, observing his friend and intervening when explicatives became involved. (They have feelings you know, my dear, how would you like to be called a dung brain?)

Rincewind — lovely fellow but always seemed to be looking for the nearest exit — had not had as much gardening advice as Crowley had hoped. At least, nothing Crowley could attempt without being sent a warning from the Ministry of Magic, but he watched in awe as the man prodded his petunias until they’d settled on a colour of purple he deemed satisfactory.

“Fear,” he said, and Crowley wasn’t quite sure if Rincewind was referring to his dominant emotion, or the plants.“The plants respond best to intimidation.”

He’d set Crowley to practise leering over the strawberry bushes until their fruit began to ripen. “You’ll work up to the ivy.” He muttered, giving the draping plant a sidelong glare, so that it rearranged its vines in to a neat criss-cross pattern.

There was a loud “oof!” And Aziraphale looked up from his book in time to see the football careening over the garden hedge. Newt rubbed his head and pouted.

“Why’d you throw it so high?”

“The Quaffle will be flying, you know.” Anathema rolled her eyes and hitched up her skirt to climb through the undergrowth.

“Hey, hey!”

She emerged on the other side to find a young boy holding their football. He and three friends were perched on bikes they’d been riding around the neighbouring paddock. Anathema narrowed her eyes and inspected their auras — muggle children. Surely their muggle repellant charms should keep them away from the house? As it would turn out, these kids weren’t quite the norm.

Anathema smiled and the boy threw the ball back to her.

“D’you want to play with us?” He tipped his head inquisitively, brown curls bouncing around his face.

“Ahhhhh,”

“You’re dressed like a witch!” Exclaimed one of his friends, a girl in a red poncho.

Anathema froze, eyes widening.

“What’s taking so long?” Newt fought through the hedge, nearly breaking his glasses in the process. “Oh,” he stopped when he saw the children. Newt wasn’t anti-children. No, it could be argued that he was technically still a child himself, but being the level of awkwardness the boy was, he tended to get on better with any individuals over the age of 80 whose memory span lasted anywhere between 10 and 60 seconds.

“Great, you both can play.” The leader grabbed Newt’s arm and begun to drag the teen in the direction of the forest. “We’re going to play witch hunters.”

“Wait,” Anathema hesitated. “CROWLEY! ZIRA! Come over here!”

The kids’ faces brightened.

“There’s more of you?”

Newt thought about the theme of the game and gulped.

“Anathema , I don’t think—“

The girl shushed him.

“No, you don’t, do you? Come on it’ll be fun!”

“It’ll be fun!” Chorused the children.

When the other two boys dragged themselves through the hedge, eyeing the children warily, the leader stepped forward to introduce himself.

“My name is Adam. I am 10 years old.” (He held up the appropriate number of fingers to reinforce the point.) “This is Brian, Wensleydale and Pepper. We call ourselves The Them.”

Anathema smiled, she did have a soft spot for kids, muggle or otherwise.

“Well, my name is Anathema. You can call me Anna if that’s too much. This is Newton, my boyfriend.” (Pepper made a face.) “And this is Crowley and Aziraphale, but you can call him Zira if you want. So, yeah, this is us.”

“You’re called The Us?” Piped up the grubby looking boy. “Wow, you must be our mortal enemies. I always thought it was the Johnsonites but my dad’s always sayin’ how it’s us versus them — them’s the immigrants who’re taking his job.”

Anathema refrained from commenting on the thinly veiled racism in that statement.

“Yes, we are The Us.” She nodded proudly.

“Well, come on then! We have to show you the witch torture chamber!” Adam began running towards the forest.

“Witch torture chamber?” Crowley mouthed as they trailed along behind. Anathema shrugged.

“They’re kids.”

“They’re gunning to kill us.”

“It’ll be fine,” she reassured.

Aziraphale didn’t mean to intervene but The Them were very misinformed. They wanted to play “detective, cowboy wizards” (Pepper refused to be labelled as a witch, it was unnecessarily gendered) which was a questionable mash up at best, but then they began to define the rules of the game and this put the Slytherin on edge.

“You can conjure a sword if you run past that tree.” Wensleydale recited. “You can climb a tree and shoot spells down on your opponent but you can’t use your sword that you conjured whilst in a tree.”

Crowley frowned, hands deep in his pockets and lounging against a tree.

“Why can I drop my sword on someone else’s head if they walk past my tree?”

“Because that’s unsportsmanlike.” Adam deadpanned.

“Wait,” aziraphale was massaging his forehead. Crowley would know that look anywhere. It was the look the angel would get right before he corrected a teacher, whether they appreciated it or not. “You can’t conjure something from nothing. Where are the swords coming from? Is there a stockpile somewhere?”

Adam frowned.

“Who cares, it’s a game?”

“But you have to follow the laws of magic.” Aziraphale said exasperatedly and trust he was going to get pedantic with a bunch of muggle kids. It suddenly occurred to Anathema that the other teens couldn’t read the children’s aura. They didn’t know they were muggles.

“How else are you going to learn before you go to school the proper rules of magic?”

Pepper frowned.

“They don’t cover that in Year 2, d’you mean we’ll learn in Year 3?” Her eyes lit up.

Anathema trod on the Slytherin’s foot and he yelped, sagging back on to the tree Crowley was currently occupying.

“What Zira means is that… regular school.” She emphasised it, hoping the others would get the hint. “Doesn’t teach you the real magic tricks. They don’t want you to become too powerful.”

The children nodded in understanding.

“But, our secret club knows lots of tricks that they won’t tell you.” She nodded.

Newt frowned at the other boys, who shrugged, unable to work out where this was heading.

“Like how to tell the time of day without a clock, how to find edible plants for when the zombies take over, and how to get an adult to stop bugging you!”

Crowley hoped the latter was turning the offending adult in to a frog, but suspected it was part of the “psychology” mumbo-jumbo that Anathema was always ranting on about.

The kids were enthralled.

“How about we make a circle of silence first, so the adults can’t hear us?” She whispered. Turns out a circle of silence is made from fallen leaves in the clearing, the most conveniently available item. Newt grabbed the handfuls of leaves more gingerly than the others, mumbling something about “big spiders” and “vicious bow truckles” — Anathema kicked his shin at the latter.

Once they were sat in a circle, Anathema began explaining how you can use the position of the sun as a clock. Wensleydale, to his credit, was actually taking notes. Crowley was basking in the sunlight breaking through the trees. Aziraphale and Newt both adopted a look of they hoped resembled interest but the Slytherin had landed on “suffering” and the Hufflepuff on “bemused” (which wasn’t very far from his normal expression).

It was going well, albeit slowly. Anathema loved answering the kids questions, and was quite pleased that they thought she was teaching them real magic. Crowley had fallen asleep on Aziraphale’s shoulder some time ago. The sun was travelling slowly across the sky.

“3pm!” Adam piped up. Wensleydale made a show of checking his watch and let out a cheer.

The noise made Crowley wake with a start and he awkwardly brushed the other’s blazer where he’d been resting.

“What’s that?” Said Brian sharply, point at Crowley’s exposed chest. The deep v neck on the teen drew attention to the mottled gold scarring that covered his neck and shoulders. The kids crowded forward before the boy had time to register what was going on.

“Is it real?” Pepper poked his neck in awe. “Are you sick?” More concerned now.

“Of course not,” Wensleydale stood up suddenly, shaking and point a finger at Crowley. “He’s an evil witch!” The tone was panicked and accusatory and The Them scattered in the clearing, grabbing the sticks they’d been playing with for defence.

“Well, _shit_.” Crowley hissed and unfolded himself from the forest floor.

“Please don’t hurt us, evil witch!” Pepper trembled and, yes, these kids truely believed the boy was a witch. “He’s got red hair and everything!” She hissed. “Why didn’t we see it before?”

Anathema stepped forward and pushed away the sticks.

“Calm down guys, Crowley’s just got some special marks.”

“Where’d he get them from?” Adam shot. “My mum’s a nurse and she ain’t said anything about gold marks and yellow eyes.”

Adam gasped.

“He’s not a witch. He’s a demon!”

Crowley’s eyebrows shot up.

“Yes, he’s a demon.” Said Anathema desperately and what was going on? “He’s a demon, but he’s trying to be good. You guys hunt witches, don’t you?”

The kids nodded.

“What do you do when you find a witch?”

“Well,” Pepper hesitated. “We haven’t found one yet but the lore says you gotta burn em.”

She pulled a lighter out of her poncho and Newt swore.

“Well, then, it’s a good thing you don’t hunt demons. You don’t have to worry about burning Crowley. You can’t burn a demon. Besides, he’s our prisoner.”

“What’re you going to do with him? It doesn’t look like you’re punishing him?” Asked the girl suspiciously.

“Ah, no, well we demon hunters believe in reformation. We find demons who have done unspeakable evils and make them repent.”

“Repent?”

“Do good things.”

The kids still looked confused.

“I like, feed the homeless and pick up trash and stuff.” Crowley chipped in.

“When does he get re-pent-ed?” Brian asked cautiously.

“When he’s cleaned our oceans and prevented climate change.” Anathema replied solemnly.

Adam shook his head.

“Tough luck, buddy.” He addressed Crowley. “You aren’t never going to be re-pent-ed. My older sister says this planet is _fucked_.”

The teens froze. Crowley bit back a laugh.

“We have to go back for afternoon tea.” Pepper tugged at Adam’s sleeve. “Good like with your demon, Miss Anna. It was lovely meeting you all.”

The kids waved and bundled up their bikes.

“Raissse hell kidss.” Crowley called at their retreating figures. The group couldn’t hold back a chuckle at the strangeness of the encounter.

“Never again.” Crowley hissed to Anathema through gritted teeth as they returned to the backyard. “Bloody kids and their bloody ideas.”

“Relax,” the girl waved her hand lazily. “They weren’t going to set you on fire… probably.”


	3. Choice Words and Questionable Choices

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Third year comes with a surprise: the muggles who call themselves “The Them” get invited to Hogwarts.  
Aziraphale admits he has a crush, but twists the truth with devastating consequences.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m not super happy with this chapter, it didn’t flow when I was writing it and I just wanted to bin it tbh but let’s just get through it so we can get to the romance™! Shout out to @secret_echoes for giving me the idea to send The Them to Hogwarts, things are about to get a whole lot more crazy…  
I know that, realistically, after the events in HP some of these stores (like Ollivander’s and the ice cream shop) would not exist but I’m pretending they got revived by avid customers and had a second wave. Respect your local bus driver, they’re doing god’s work.

The rest of the summer passed in a blur of beach days and far too much studying for Crowley’s liking. Anathema would be sitting her OWLs at the end of the year, and had bought all of her books months in advance to start “cramming.” How one could call it “cramming” before the classes had started, Crowley had no idea. He was even more put out when Aziraphale jumped at the chance to join her.

And that was how, for the first time in two years, Crowley found himself opening his Charms textbook, which quickly became an uncomfortable pillow as it became apparent the others were serious about studying and this wasn’t a ruse for a good gossip session.

“Anthony!”

Aziraphale only used his first name when he was really in trouble. The boy started and lifted his head from the book.

“Whaa?—“ he said sleepily.

“You are drooling on the summoning spells.” With uncharacteristic force, Aziraphale pulled the book out from under him and began sponging at the page with his sleeve cuff in earnest.

This made Crowley smirk. The angel would lay down his life for a book, even a crappy reprint of a textbook whose poor grammar tended to send the boy in to fits of rage.

When he was done, he wouldn’t give it back and so Crowley was left with nothing to do but glare at his friend as he scratched out notes on Muggle Studies (why). He had aimed for a glare, but when Anathema paused and looked up at the boy, he was staring at Aziraphale with a kind of fondness Anthony Crowley would argue wasn’t in his repertoire.

Sunlight cascaded in through the kitchen window and illuminated Aziraphale’s halo of gold curls. The boy had a smile permanently affixed to his face as he switched between reading and transcribing notes. He was the only person Crowley had ever met who could be caught smiling at homework, and Crowley (though he daren’t admit it) might be the only person in the world who could be caught smiling at someone smiling at their homework.

There was a clatter from the backdoor and Newt, who’d been suspiciously absent of late, burst in to the room pursued by a flurry of barn owls. He looked terrified, glasses askew, as though the birds had been chasing him for a while. Diving under the table where the others were seated and cowering slightly, he managed to communicate.

“Hogwarts letters.”

Anathema leapt up and corralled the indignant birds outside, knowing full well that Newt and just one owl in an enclosed space would result in the boy fainting sooner or later. She returned a few moments later with four thick letters, sliding them across the table to their respective owners and used the last to coax Newt out from his hiding place.

“Hmm,” she tipped out the contents of the letter, a shiny blue prefect badge falling to the table. But she was more interested in the text list, lamenting that she’d been studying from an old edition of the Transfiguration text and resolving to start her revision from scratch once they returned from Diagon Alley, which meant she was determined to go as soon as possible.

⁂

As soon as possible, much to Crowley’s disgust, turned out to be at 8am the next morning. By 7am the witch was banging together pots and pans out the front of Aziraphale and his shared room.

“What the fuck?” Aziraphale wasn’t awake enough to reprimand his friend for his language and they both got ready for the day as slowly as Anathema would let them get away with. By 8am they were being pushed out the front door, each clutching a piece of bread because “toasting takes time” and apparently they had very little.

“Why’d you have to get involved with a Ravenclaw?” Crowley grumbled humourlessly to Newt as they trekked to the bus stop. Anathema, who had set their walking pace at ridiculously-fast, turned and glared at him some 200 metres ahead. “Blimey, she hears everything.”

Newt nodded and made a little hushing noise. He wasn’t scared of his girlfriend, per say, but the girl was definitely scary.

⁂

Aziraphale, in his ridiculous linen pants and ridiculous tartan bow tie, was taking notes as they sat on the bus, which made the whole thing even _more ridiculous_ in Crowley's opinion. Who takes notes on a bus?

“I really want to interview a muggle about whether they believe the public transport service in Greater London is sufficient to meet consumer demands.”

Crowley grunted.

“Maybe rephrase it to a bit less,” he waved his hand vaguely “_nerd_,”

His friend huffed.

At the next stop, a rather put out looking businessman got on. He seemed to be talking in to his bluetooth headpiece such that it too the bus occupants (and the driver) a few moments to realise he was berating the man behind the wheel.

“Your app said that there was a bus coming at 8:14 but I never saw one and stood out in the cold for 13 minutes before you bothered to show up, you’re 3 minutes late and I should’ve been in Piccadilly an hour ago.” He fumed.

The bus driver was not having it.

“You’re telling me that it’s my fault that you obviously waited far too late to get to Piccadilly at an appropriate time. Our transport methods don’t include time travel. “

Crowley sniggered as the businessman made a rude gesture at the driver.

“London transport is fucking terrible, enjoy it wankers.” The man yelled to the rest of the bus as he stepped off.

Crowley leaned over so his breath was tickling against Aziraphale’s ear.

“Please quote that in your essay, Angel.” And he was surprised to find the boy actually writing it down.

⁂

Diagon Alley was contained chaos at this time of year. The teens bumped in to a lot of familiar faces, both welcome and less welcome. Crowley had seen Helen standing out the front of Flourish and Blotts with what must have been her parents and pushed Aziraphale forward so that he could crouch behind the boy.

“How about we hide at Florean Fortescue’s’” Of course the Hufflepuff had been looking for a way to suggest they visit the infamous (and reconstructed) ice cream shop. Crowley was more than happy to oblige. Newt had broken his wand a few weeks earlier in an unfortunate yet entirely expected Quaffle accident and the couple had wandered off to Ollivander’s, the boy worrying that there might not be another wand out there for him.

As they shuffled away from the bookshop, heads down, Crowley felt a pang of guilt. Seeing Helen had reminded him of how utterly stupid he’d been these last few years, letting a girl he barely knew, and hardly cared about at the best of times, break up the best friendship the boy had ever had. This summer had been a catch-up for the two of them, not talking about what had happened between but, rather, what had happened in their lives that the other had missed out on in the time they were apart. It had hurt Crowley, though he’d never admit to it, to learn that Aziraphale had faced his brother Gabriel alone. That was something that the Hufflepuff had been hell-bent on mending, that relationship, or kicking the prefect in the shins if he acted like a prick. He had acted like a prick, turns out, and told Aziraphale on no uncertain terms that he wasn’t welcome back at home. His mother still sent him a few galleons every now and then, but they came without a note, not an enquiry in to her youngest son’s wellbeing, absolutely nothing. Aziraphale only saw them in the passing at King’s Cross and was only greeted with a hesitant wave and pursed lips.

And Crowley had missed midnight adventures, and pranks, feasts with his friend, and study sessions. The latter he would endure just for the sake of being with his friend.

Was it all worth it? Not at all, and now he cursed Helen and her stupid values in every available second.

Crowley picked one scoop of coffee gelato whilst Aziraphale marvelled over all of the novel flavours unique to Diagon Alley before choosing a rather conservative and un-magical sounding rhubarb and custard. They lounged in the shade out the front of the shop, watching the motley assortment of witches, wizards and goblins scurry up and down the street.

Crowley was still thinking about Helen. He was considering apologising to the angel again, probably for the hundredth time this summer. Though he was privately aware there wasn’t enough forgiveness to fill ache in the boy’s chest. What he’d done was unforgivable, and it took someone as kind hearted as Aziraphale to even consider granting forgiveness.

“Um, can I ask?” Oh no this wasn’t what he’d wanted to say but the words were leaping from his mouth before he had a chance to catch them. Something that had been weighing on his mind since the train ride home. Something like…

“You said, about the rumour, _ngk_.” Crowley didn’t really want to repeat it, rather, hoped his friend knew exactly what he was referring to. “You said that you thought they were right. How do you know?” It was curious, not accusatory. But his friend still froze, ice-cream halfway to his mouth, as if Crowley had probed the deepest and darkest part of the boy’s mind, the kind of secrets that words can’t quite articulate — probably because you’ve never told anyone before.

“Ohhh, ahhh.” Aziraphale cleared his throat awkwardly. “Well, yeah there’s someone, a guy, I’ve had my eye on so I think, yeah, I think I’m gay.”

Crowley’s stomach dropped.

“Who is it?” It came out sharp and cutting, rather than the typical teasing tone that one approaches first crushes.

Aziraphale discarded his ice cream in the bin beside them, and that was warning enough, if Crowley had have been paying attention.

“It’s—“ The boy blushed. _Oh god_, he really didn’t want to have this conversation but Crowley seemed so dogged in his questioning, amber eyes pinning down the angel until he got an answer.

“Is he in Slytherin?”

Aziraphale shook his head whilst wildly groping for a suitable lie.

“Gryffindor?” Again.

“Hufflepuff?” There was a slight crack in his friends voice, but Aziraphale was in denial mode and had practically dissociated from the conversation. _Oh shit, shit, fuck._ Aziraphale wasn’t usually fond of profanities but, when used judiciously and not spoken out loud, they had a profound way of describing how much he was… well, _fucked_. If Anthony got the truth…

“So he’s in Ravenclaw?” Crowley frowned. “Process of elimination, angel.”

Aziraphale blanched just nodded, hoping this would end the conversation.

It did, somewhat, but it sent Crowley into a bout of brooding that only broke when the rest of his ice cream cone dropped wetly to the ground.

“Uhhh, oh, we should go.” He said half-heartedly and raised from his seat.

But there was a shout, and a flurry of little arms, and suddenly the two boys were being embraced by some very familiar kids.

“Demon!” Pepper shouted happily. “You’ll never believe this.”

They all wanted to tell the story at once. How each of their families had woken up to a barn owl tapping on the window. How they’d met in the forest later that day, clutching their letters that told them they were real life wizards (Pepper again rejected the title of “witch”.) Despite everything, Crowley couldn’t help but smile as the kids ranted and raved about every thing they’d seen in the Alley so far. It wasn’t until the rest stopped to take their (first) breath of the conversation that Wensleydale frowned, pushed up his glasses and asked:

“So you go to Hogwarts too?” The two nodded. The Them’s faces lit up in excitement and suddenly there was a deluge of questions. Neither wanted to give too much away to the overexcitable foursome and so they answered vaguely, yet that seemed enough to satiate the kids.

Aziraphale realised there were a cluster of adults standing back awkwardly and went over to introduce himself to the very bemused muggle parents. They spent the rest of the afternoon with The Them and their family, helping them find their way around, eventually meeting up with Anathema and Newt after their arduous appointment in Ollivander’s.

The group were hyper-excitable at the best of times, and they zoomed between the shops like bound by a summoning charm. Crowley had a headache but the kids weren’t entirely to blame.

As they stopped once again out the front of the ice cream shop, where Pepper had boldly made a bet with Adam that they could not possibly have more than 32 flavours and the group had gone to investigate, Crowley found someone pulling him aside.

Anathema dragged him in to a side alley, despite his spluttering.

“What’s wrong?” She glared, face a mere inch from his. He’d forgotten how tall she was, and how terrifying.

“What? Nothing’s wrong.” Crowley scoffed.

“Bullshit. You look like you’ve seen a boggart. What happened whilst we were in Ollivander’s?”

Crowley inspected the cobbled pavement as his head raged a mental battle. He felt like he’d been mortally wounded, and Anathema, despite her fierceness, was fiercely loyal and fiercely understanding and he just wanted to fall in to the witch’s arms and cry because the world had been pulled out from under him but he still couldn’t piece together _why_.

Why was he so upset at the thought of Aziraphale’s Ravenclaw crush?

Maybe he just didn’t like the idea of sharing his friend with someone else, boyfriend or otherwise. He thought about how demanding Helen had been, almost suffocating, and imagined Aziraphale finding a guy who was her mirror. Telling him not to associate with Crowley. Taking up his time. Kissing under the mistletoe at the Christmas Feast-

He didn’t quite make it to crying, but he let out a pathetic sniffle and collapsed in to Anathema’s outstretched arms.

“What is it?” She whispered, rubbing circles on the boy’s back. “You can tell me.”

Crowley gave a wretched laugh.

“It’s so stupid though.”

He half expected Anathema to slap him for that comment, but she was in gentle mode, and instead drew him in closer.

“I highly doubt it and I’m rarely wrong.” The girl chuckled.

Crowley exhaled and whispered in to the shoulder of her cardigan.

“Aziraphale has a crush on a boy in Ravenclaw. He just told me. I shouldn’t have asked, because now I’m scared.”

“Scared about what?” Anathema replied, thinking back to the kitchen table and the softness in the Hufflepuff’s eyes as he watched the other boy working.

“I don’t know.” He admitted.


	4. Firecrackers and Other Distractions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At the Sorting Ceremony The Them are pulled in different directions, Aziraphale is pulled away by a bully, and Crowley is pulled by a frantic desire to find out who his friend's mysterious crush is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Don't get your hopes up, these idiots didn't just magic up some communication skills overnight, but they're getting there.   
/Heavy angst and comfort/ to come in the next few chapters.  
Did I get The Them's houses right? Can you believe that these dummies think Crowley and Anathema are becoming a thing?

In the couple of days before they were due to return to school, Aziraphale noticed that Crowley had begun spending increasingly more time with Anathema. Newton bore the brunt of the shift in dynamics, and now sat beside Aziraphale fidgeting aimlessly as the Slytherin tried to focus on his book.

After a while, the boy got annoyed with the movement in his periphery and slammed “Hogwarts: A History” violently shut, far more violently than he’d ever dare treat the first edition. Truth was, he was angry, and Newt’s fidgeting was driving him up the wall.

“Why don’t you just go and sit with them?” He sighed. Crowley and Anathema were sitting on the grass out the back, Crowley tearing at the grass beneath them viciously whilst Anathema talked.

“Why don’t you?” He shot back.

Aziraphale frowned and shifted in the armchair.

“S’not my girlfriend who’s hanging around with another man.” And yes, maybe he’d chosen his words carefully, hoping this would push his friend to intervene. Alas, true to form, Newt just wilted in his seat and did nothing.

The view out the window was far more distracting than the way Newt bit at his fingers and picked at the couch arm, but the Hufflepuff was a much more… proximal annoyance, so he bore the brunt of Aziraphale’s misplaced anger. Poor kid.

“You have to do something before it’s too late.” The blond added lightly, a comment which perhaps served as both a warning to himself and his friend. But Aziraphale couldn’t do that, he couldn’t force Crowley to like him that way. He knew that he wasn’t like that. He’d spent a year hanging off the arm of one of the prettiest girls in school and it was with a heavy heart that Aziraphale recalled walking past them making out in the grounds: Crowley’s red hair tousled, hand sliding down to Helen’s waist as their lips met in frantic passion.

He shook himself and felt guilty of how often he’d selfishly replayed that memory and wished it was someone else with his friend.

“If it continues when we go back to school, I’ll say something.” Newt didn’t quite manage to make it sound convincing, but Aziraphale hummed in encouragement and silently hoped that, for once, their friend would be brave enough to go through with it.

⁂

They rolled up at the castle just as the clouds above them started to rumble. The trip had been relatively uneventful, they’d sat in a compartment together and laughed and joked. Crowley had sat next to Aziraphale like normal, but his friend couldn’t help but notice there seemed to be an invisible wall between them. Crowley was always trying to catch Anathema’s eye, and each time he succeeded, the Ravenclaw gave him a small smile. Newt hadn’t noticed but it made Aziraphale’s stomach sour.

They’d been briefly interrupted by an outburst of firecrackers, that is, The Them burst through the door all shrill and overwhelmed until Aziraphale offered to share his bag of chocolate frogs if they’d just sit-down-and-calm-down. Coming from muggle backgrounds, they were pleasantly unaware of the inter-house politics. They discussed with the older students which hour they wanted to get in to based on their favourite colours.

“That’s sweet,” Anathema smiled as they left. Pepper had loudly declared that she didn’t want to be in Hufflepuff because yellow was such a “wishy-washy colour” and she maintained that she had no respect for it. It was an odd way to think about it, but the Them were odd. They all wanted to be in the same house, but then Brian said in a small voice “But Pepper, I like yellow.” And they devolved in to an argument about which colour they all liked equally.

⁂

Now, as they took their seats in the Great Hall, Aziraphale found he was almost on the edge of his seat waiting for the sorting to begin. This was a first, of course, as the boy was usually thinking about the delights of the following feast. But he was so caught up in a apprehension, he didn’t see the sour look that Hastur and his gang were casting his way, or the rude hand gestures. He had, in the bliss of a summer with his friend, completely forgotten about the family he’d abandoned for Jasmine Cottage. They weren’t his family, of course, but he didn’t think of how forsaking them for their estranged son may bear as a slight for the prideful family.

The first years were ushered in and each member of the Them got their chance on the stool.

Pepper was first, the hat had barely touched her head before it roared “Gryffindor!” Her eyes lit up and she threw the hat to the floor as she dashed over to her new house.

A few more students passed through the motions and then it was Brian. He seemed to be a difficult case, and sat there for a few minutes whilst the hat umm’ed and ahh’ed, perhaps trying to unscramble what was going on in the boy’s head.

“Hufflepuff!”

Brian’s face fell slightly at not ending up with his friend, but he was still brimming with excitement and scurried over to Crowley and Newt who were whistling in amongst the cheers of the crowd.

“Well done kid.” Crowley said fondly. Newt had been a bit distance with the boy since they’d sat down, barely making eye contact with his friend. So Crowley shifted up the bench and let Brian sit in between them, let Newt have some time to stew about whatever was going on.

Then it was Wensleydale, whose head was engulfed completely by the sorting hat such that nobody could discern the boy’s reaction when it called out “Ravenclaw!”

He found Anathema, who was grinning broadly and, despite only having met the boy a few times, had been certain all along of this result.

The last was Adam, the leader. It was the least confident Crowley had ever seen him, as he shuffled up to the chair. Perhaps he figured that in this string of bad luck, the Them would all be separated, that the final member would be placed in Slytherin and maybe they’d grow apart. He’d have Aziraphale, of course, but the angel was too proper and studious to indulge the boy’s game of Pirates and Indians in the grounds. Too much mud.

Adam sat with the hat on his head for a while. His face was screwed up and it appeared that he was trying to communicate something to the hat which, after a while relented, because it spoke with a:

“Alright, I guess I could say it’ll be… Gryffindor!”

There was a squeal from the end table as Pepper leapt to her feet and applauded her friend, stamping on the floor until the noise became deafening.

Adam all but bounced over to the table. He was the last first year to be sorted, and the hall now broke out in idle conversation as the students waited for the feast to appear.

Crowley was craning his neck to see over to the Ravenclaw table and, when Aziraphale noticed, his heart sunk. His friend was obviously looking for Anathema and, surely enough, when the red head made eye contact, the girl smiled, mouthing something over the crowd. The Slytherin’s hands tightened around his cutlery as a wave of jealousy hit him. So he all but comes out to his friend, and Crowley’s response is to get with the closest girl around, _one with a boyfriend_, for that matter?

He glared down at his steak and kidney pie, hacking it in to small bits and pushing it around the plate. He wasn’t up for talking to anyone right now, least of all his neighbours at the table, but then a hand grabbed him by the hood of his robe and he felt himself falling backwards towards the cold, stone floor.

⁂

Crowley had enlisted Anathema to work out who the Ravenclaw boy who’s stolen Aziraphale’s heart was. Despite outsourcing the work, the Hufflepuff found himself staring at the two neat rows of Ravenclaw students for the most part of the meal, so much so that he didn’t even notice when his uneaten dinner morphed in to a clean plate, ready for pudding.

He didn’t know any of the Ravenclaws except for Anathema, but he did have an image seared in to his head as to what this boy would look like: tall, brown hair, neat clothes and rounded cheeks. Soft and gentle, that’s what Aziraphale would go for. Kind hearted and loyal and not a backstabber like Crowley had been in the past. Probably someone he could have intelligent conversations with, someone well read— Crowley’s eyes fell on a teen sitting at the very end of the table. He mostly matched the description in Crowley’s head, but instead had a mop of honey blonde hair and a sprinkling of freckles across his face. He was deeply absorbed in a book. From a distance he looked to Crowley like this could be the angel’s soulmate. His heart clenched and he waved to get Anathema’s attention, gesturing to the boy. She pounced, rushing over to find out everything about the teen with the guise of making polite conversation.

The Hufflepuff’s eyes stung and, before he could wipe them away, tears were falling hot and heavy on his empty plate.

“Crowley?” Brian leaned over, alarmed when he saw the look on the others’ face. Even Newt softened a bit when he saw what distress his friend was in.

“’S nothing,” he awkwardly swung his legs over the bench and tried to escape the press of celebrating students. Newt lunged to grab the boy as he took off, but missed by inches. Crowley made it to the entrance hall before he broke down completely — confused, and tired, and now the portraits were whispering and eyeing him with distaste. His skin was prickling where his scars marred his body and the hallway was growing smaller and smaller in front of his eyes.

“Shut up! Shut up!” He screamed at the residents of the paintings around him, clamping his hands over his ears in anguish. It was only when they heeded his order that Crowley became aware of another sound, floating up from the hallway to the dungeons, a small strangled cry and the unmistakable growl of a voice he knew too well.

At the end of his tether and disconnected from the moment, Crowley felt himself marching in the direction of the voice. If Hastur was going to be beating up another first year on their first day of school, well, the red head had a lot of pent up rage, and grief, and for once felt like he could take on his wretched brother.


	5. Peer Reflections

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> True to form, Crowley needs an inanimate object to tell him how he truly feels about Aziraphale. What a revelation!

As Crowley dashed towards the source of the noise, he found himself intercepted by a loud, pearly white figure.

“Ickle huff-puff, why are you running?”

“I don’t have time for this, Peeves.” He fumed, trying to skirt around the poltergeist.

“About to get in to some mischief are we?” He simpered, blocking the path. Crowley didn’t have it in him to run through the ghost.

“There’s someone getting hurt!” He hissed angrily. There was a whimper from further down the hall. “Hastur’s beating up a first year.”

Peeves’ face darkened, if that is at all possible, at the mention of the Slytherin’s name. He’d spent the last couple of years in fierce competition with the boy. Not a friendly, enjoyable competition, rather, a cutthroat battle for dominance in the hallways of the castle. Hastur was prone to underhanded tricks and the poltergeist didn’t respect that.

“I’ll intervene,” he offered silkily. Crowley visibly relaxed. “If, Mister Crowley owes a favour.”

It didn’t take much deliberation. Crowley’s anger had abated somewhat, and his adrenaline had followed suit. He was reconsidering his own need to get involved. Surely Peeves would make him put gum in the keyholes whilst the poltergeist took a nap or something?

“Deal,” he didn’t much want to shake on it, but the ghost did just that. Before zooming off crackling towards the altercation.

“Hastur you little toad, Peevesy’s back and ready to play.” He blew a loud raspberry. Crowley scurried back up to the entrance hall before he could get implicated in the mess to follow.

⁂

He arrived as students had begun pouring out of the hall.

“What the hell?” Anathema grabbed his arm as soon as she saw the red head. “Where’d you go?”

“Hastur,” Crowley muttered.

“His name is Taylor, by the way.” The Hufflepuff’s stomach twisted as he was reminded of their mission. “He’s in fourth year. His favourite book is Stasiland.” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “Didn’t have to ask that one.”

“So you agree?” Crowley said.

“What, that he’s the one—“

“Yeah,”

Anathema paused and shrugged.

“Maybe, why don’t you just ask Aziraphale?”

Crowley frowned. “I’d rather feed myself to the giant squid.”

And it was true.

⁂

He ignored Newt and Brian when he got back to the common room. Opting to drag himself up to bed instead. His trunk and Sally’s cage were stacked neatly at the foot of his bed. Helet Sally out of her cage to slide around his neck like a heavy scarf.

“You like me, don’t you?” Said the boy mournfully. He received a small lick on the cheek for that.

“Good, I’m glad someone thinks I’m loveable.”

⁂

The next morning, there was an empty seat at the Slytherin table, and it wasn’t too hard to pick out who was missing. Entering the hall, Crowley scanned the rows of green cloaks and black hair, looking for the flutter of golden curls. But today…

“Where’s Aziraphale?” He sat down heavily next to Newt, who all but forgot that he was annoyed at the boy.

“Some one said he was in the hospital wing.” He frowned. “But it was probably just a rumour,” he added hurriedly, but Crowley was already on his feet and sprinting toward the doors. His damn angel would never let him have a meal.

⁂

He didn’t wait for Madam Pomfrey to open the door rather, kicked at it quite viciously and strode straight through.

“Young man!”

“Young man.” Crowley mimicked the matron as he stormed past, heart in his throat. He thought back to the incident last night. He’d stupidly assumed that Hastur was torturing a first year, as he wont to do, he should have known. He should have known.

“Angel!” Relief flooded back as he saw Aziraphale propped up in one of the beds nearest the window, looking quite alright, if not a little tired.

“Crowley?” He put down his book. The matron had healed all of the bruises from his beating in an instant, but insisted the boy stay for the night to treat the “shock.” Shock it was, as Aziraphale found he couldn’t close his eyes without the tightening around his throat as Hastur had dragged him from the dining hall, the contact of every blow, what the thug had said in his frustration that Aziraphale had betrayed the family.

“Was this Hastur?” The red head demanded, perching on the side of the bed. “Did he do this?”

His friend nodded weakly.

“But Peeves came in the end and distracted him so I could get away.”

“Bloody hell, I’m grateful for that miserable sod.” Crowley growled. “Are you okay? Why are you still here? What did he do to you?”

Aziraphale shook his head.

“I’m fine, just a bit shaken up. Hastur, ah, he wasn’t too happy that I spent the holidays with you.”

It wasn’t his fault but Crowley felt the guilt blossom in his chest anyway. If he’d just let Aziraphale go, he’d be happy with the Crowley’s and probably with this Taylor guy and his pretentious books and… he didn’t really want to think about it.

“Don’t get too worked up,” the blond let out a weak laugh. “It’s been coming for ages.”

“Doesn’t make it any more welcome. Did you tell them who did this?”

Aziraphale nodded.

“They’ve banned Hastur from speaking to me, unofficially but, If he causes anymore trouble he’ll have detention for the rest of the year, at least.”

Crowley exhaled and instinctively reached up to card through his friend’s hair.

“I’m glad you’re alright.” He murmured. The angel give him a funny look, before shrugging and leaning in to the touch.

⁂

Crowley was kicked out to go to class, grumbling all the way. Back in the common room, which was now largely empty, he realised that his first class was Divination.

“Shit,” he groaned and grabbed his books. He’d never been to the divination rooms and he had about 4 minutes to find them.

Or he could just skip.

He trotted down the corridors with the air of someone who was waiting until 9:01 to declared “Oh fuck it, I won’t make it to class.” He hadn’t quite thought ahead though, and now worried where he was going to spend the next hour undetected.

There were footsteps around the corner, and Crowley was forced to make that decision fast, diving through a tapestry depicting the Garden of Eden when it swung open obligingly.

“What—?” He tumbled in to a dimly lit room, that could have either been a luxuriously big broom cupboard or a shoe-box of an office. It was neither, it appeared, as there was nothing there except for a large, hulking object on the back wall. Crowley pulled off the sheet that covered it and saw himself staring back.

Great dirty big mirror. He thought grumpily. That’s boring, maybe I should go to class after all.

But his reflection began to shift and suddenly he was joined by Aziraphale and Anathema and Newt, the Them playing in the background.

Startled, he turned around to find the room as empty as when he arrived.

“What on earth?”

He stepped closer to the scene. Aziraphale had an arm around the Hufflepuff’s shoulders. They were almost joined at the hip. Both were beaming and Anathema and Newt were standing off to the side looking at the couple with adoration.

The couple.

Crowley’s brain stalled as Aziraphale leaned over a pressed a kiss to the cheek of his reflection.

_The couple._

He was transfixed, and sat down on the cold stone floor to watch the way the figures postured and moved so lifelike in their glass prison. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the glow on Aziraphale’s face, or the contentment on his own. It hit him like the Whomping Willow had taken a blow.

He wanted this. He wanted this more than anything.

And suddenly, everything clicked in to place. The stab of pain that had coursed through his body when he’d heard about Aziraphale’s crush. The overwhelming anger at the thought that someone else might get to his angel first. The realisation that he didn’t even have a chance. He didn’t have a chance.

Tears tracked down his face, but Crowley refused to look away from the mirror, soaking in the fantasy whilst he had a chance. He’d been such an idiot, but maybe it was for the best that he didn’t realise his own feelings until now. Aziraphale deserved better, despite what the boy had said on the train, Crowley was the damaged goods in their friendship. He deserved this Taylor boy with his soft expression and intelligence and, Crowley could list forever the things that this boy had that he didn’t have and it was painfully cliche but the one that matter most was that this Taylor had Aziraphale’s affections.

And the Hufflepuff didn’t.

He dragged himself away from the mirror when he heard voices in the corridor, students moving between classrooms. He wiped his eyes and scurried out to find Anathema, who would be in the library on a free period. He needed to talk to someone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> /Two idiots sitting in a tree, avoiding eye contact and denying their feelings./


	6. True Colours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale creates a plan to trick the truth out of Crowley and Anathema. The outcome sees him questioning everything.

Aziraphale felt hunted as he walked down the empty corridors. He’d asked Madam Pomfrey if Crowley could come back when the boy got let out from the hospital wing, but she shushed him and insisted that his friend would be in class. There was half an hour until the second class for the day finished and, for once, Aziraphale had no desire to find his transfiguration room and begin the slow task of catching up. He needed comfort. He needed the library.

⁂

He picked through the shelves of muggle fiction, looking for something that was familiar enough that he could skim over the pages and still be wrapped up in the story, but hesitated when he heard a voice he recognised all to well. Peering around the shelves, the Slytherin saw Crowley and Anathema huddled on a couch that had been tucked in to the corner of one of the aisles. The girl was stroking his hair, much the same way that the boy had done for Aziraphale a few hours previously. The red head’s face was buried in to her shoulder. They looked close, intimate, and Aziraphale suddenly felt the urge to look away. But he didn’t and that was a mistake.

He saw Anathema lean down and press a soft kiss to the top of the boy’s head.

Aziraphale fumbled with the books he was holding, shoving them haphazardly back on to the shelves and storming out.

“Newton!” He burst through the double doors and hurried down the lawn to where the class was returning from Care of Magical Creatures. Students stared at the shrill, baby-faced Slytherin as he blustered past. Newt was still down near the forest, trying to put out the hem of his robes that had caught on fire. They had been learning about Kelpies, god knows where that boy managed to get fire from.

“They’re kissing.” He hissed with anger as he drew level with the boy.

“Pardon?” Newt looked up from his now soggy robes in surprise. “Who’s what?”

“Your girlfriend and Crowley. In the library.” Aziraphale glared. It was terrible for poor Newt, really, and he’d decided to dedicate all of his anger to his cause. He may not have a chance with Crowley, but he sure wasn’t about to let the red head break up another relationship. Or, at least, that’s what he told himself.

Newt paled.

“Really, I didn’t think—“

“Didn’t think she was capable of it? No, it’s not her, he’s tempting her. Little snake.” Aziraphale spat, wringing his hands together. “I don’t know what his end goal is but he’s using her.” He’s using her to prove that he doesn’t need Aziraphale anymore.

“I don’t think—“ Newt began.

“That’s the problem, isn’t it! You don’t think!” Aziraphale bit back. “You saw what was happening and decided to turn a blind eye and now Anathema has been roped in by Anthony’s wily charms.”

Newt cowered.

“Well, what are we supposed to do?”

The blond’s eyes flashed, alight with cunning.

“We get them caught.”

⁂

Newt had not agreed to this. In fact, he wished he hadn’t agreed to anything. It was just the way his friend’s face contorted with anger that had him scared in to submission. Wouldn’t it be easier to just talk to them?

Regardless, it was too late now. He lobbed a small rock at Anathema’s window.

“Geez, don’t you learn?” The girl’s head appeared after a minute. “I’m not the only person in this tower.”

“Sorry,” Newt squeaked, but waved her down anyway. Grumbling, she slammed the window and went to get dressed.

It was a terrible plan by anyone’s standards, and usually Aziraphale liked to think his were quite high. But his brain was jumbled, and desperate, and if he could just slip some veritaserum in his friends’ hot cocoa they’d admit on the spot. Crowley might even admit to using her.

Newt had cited the half-baked plan as unethical and hadn’t bothered to ask where Aziraphale had got the potion from (He’d gotten quite good at muggle magic tricks and sleight of hand in the dungeons could be quite fruitful).

“That’s it?” He said blankly. “We get them to sneak out of their dormitories, feed them some spiked hot cocoa and then grill them?”

Aziraphale spluttered. “My dear, we’re not going to set them on fire. As adept as you are at it.”

Newt rolled his eyes, his friend was being a bastard, Aziraphale knew exactly what he’d meant and was avoiding the question.

Yes, it was a crap plan, but the Slytherin wasn’t about to admit to it.

The star-crossed lovers, however, were about to admit to a lot.

⁂

It was going to be difficult convincing Crowley to go out after hours. Aziraphale had eventually made up an extravagant lie about some rare flowers he’d seen growing in the astronomy tower that only bloomed after sundown. Crowley had agreed to accompany him surprisingly readily, his friend was expecting a push back and had a whole host of arguments to further his case, but the Hufflepuff just smiled softly and said “That’d be nice.”

“There’s no flowers.” Crowley’s face visibly dropped when they arrived at the bare spiral staircase, Newt and Anathema sitting at the base. “What’re they here for?” Crowley almost sounded hurt.

“I invited them.” Aziraphale said primly and sunk to the ground, flicking his wand and conjuring four mugs of hot cocoa. He seemed quite intent on delivering each mug to its intended recipient but settled back when they were all taken care of.

“So what’s this all about?” Crowley asked sulkily, taking a sip of his drink.

“Well, I was thinking we haven’t had a chance to spend some time together since classes have started.”

“Classes started yesterday, angel, are you already in withdrawal?” Crowley smirked. Aziraphale coloured slightly before noticing that Anathema too had taken to her drink.

“Actually, Newton and I had a few questions.” He nodded at the Hufflepuff who looked frazzled at being dragged in to it. “Newton, what was your question again?” The blond prompted, almost sickeningly sweet in his delivery.

“Uh, oh, I was just, uh, wondering if— if you two were planning on going down to Hogsmede next month?”

Anathema frowned.

“To be quite honest I think that Hogsmede has become overrun by chain outlets over the last few years. It’s been feeling a bit too much like Diagon Alley. I never thought wizards would succumb to the capitalist machine but it seems like, in light of—“ she continued for an unprecedented amount of time. From what Aziraphale could gather, her answer was “No.”But it wasn’t the question Newt was supposed to ask and he was tired of beating around the bush.

“What were you two doing in the library the other day?” He interjected.

Anathema gave a warning look at Crowley. They both looked mildly perplexed but their tongues weren’t working for them anymore and the Ravenclaw couldn’t stop the truth spilling from her mouth.

“Crowley had come to me for advice.” And, of course the girl could find a loophole in vertisirum.

Crowley scowled.

Aziraphale didn’t look satisfied.

“Crowley,” he scooted around so that he was facing his friend. Crowley clamped his lips shut and shook his head. He had a sinking feeling he knew what was going one, if only the angel didn’t ask. “What was Anathema giving you advice about?”

Crowley made a choking sound until he couldn’t fight the potion any longer.

“Y-you.” He spluttered. “She was giving me advice about you, angel. Oh, please this isn’t the way I wanted to do this.” He begged.

Aziraphale’s breath caught in his throat.

“Do what?” He asked hoarsely. It was a question Crowley was bound to answer.

“To tell you,” he looked pleadingly at Anathema, who’d sunk her face in to her hands, unable to stop the confession. “To tell you that I like you.”

Aziraphale frowned.

“I like you too, dear. Why did you need to go to Anathema for that? I thought— we thought—“

Another question.

Another answer, and this was where it would all begin to unravel.

“Because I like like you. In that way. And you like Taylor in Ravenclaw and, honestly, I can see why. He’d perfect.” He sniffed bitterly. “I can’t believe I ever thought I had a chance. But then Anathema was saying that if I just got to you first, before Taylor, then maybe things would be different. Maybe you’d settle.”

It was too much to take in and most of Aziraphale’s brain had tuned out, replaced with the swelling of violins, of Crowley likes me. Never mind that the angel had to get the confession by force. Never mind that he’d tricked his best friend and betrayed his trust. No, they wouldn’t worry about that, because they liked each other.

“Wait, who the flying fuck is Taylor?” Aziraphale grimaced.

Anathema lifted her head from her hands.

“The guy, in Ravenclaw, that you said you liked.” She whispered pathetically. “We narrowed it down, it had to be him.”

“I made it up.” Aziraphale sighed. “I panicked and I made it up. It was less embarrassing than the truth.”

Perhaps that was the wrong way to phrased it, but suddenly Aziraphale was exhausted and ashamed and he couldn’t make his brain articulate what needed to be said.

“The truth?” Crowley snorted. “Oh, please, since you’ve obviously got the rest of us telling the truth, why don’t you shed some light on things? Or do you need some of my cocoa to help out with that?” He said snidely.

“I’m sorry!” The Slytherin whined. “I just didn’t want to tell you how I felt, about you. I thought it’d scare you away.”

“Or was it too embarrassing?” Crowley’s amber eyes flashed. “Too embarrassing to admit that you liked me, your useless screw-up of a friend?”

“No, it’s not like that!” Aziraphale panicked but his friend was jumping to his feet.

“So how is it, Angel?” He sneered. “Because from here it doesn’t look too good. First you poison me to get me to confess. Drag poor Anathema into this! Then admit that saying that maybe you cared for me just a bit was humiliating enough to concoct a ridiculous lie that had me on edge for weeks.” He tugged at his hair in frustration.

Aziraphale felt sick.

“No, no—“ he scrambled to his feet, reaching for his friend.

“Don’t touch me!” The Hufflepuff spat, he grabbed Anathema and begun to stalk away from the others. “Better yet: get fucked, _angel_.”

The final words sliced the air and hung around as the pair disappeared from sight.

“We should.” Newt awkwardly got to his feet, but Aziraphale remained in a heap on the ground.

“No, you go. Just leave me here.” His voice broke. Not keen on getting caught, Newt scurried back to the Hufflepuff Common room leaving his friend sprawled at the base of the steps, weeping softly and picking at the snake embroidered on his robes.


	7. Talk is Cheap, But Darling I'm Broke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Crowley struggles to forgive his friend. Aziraphale stumbles across the tapestry of Eden. Newt plays therapist and doesn't do a terrible job.

“Where are you going?”

Anathema worried as Crowley left her out the front of Ravenclaw tower.

The boy growled as a response. So the veritaserum must have worn off, huh? _Shame_.

“No, talk to me.”

Instead, he sunk in to her shoulder and started to sob.

“There, there,” she rubbed his back. “That was pretty underhanded of him. I’m not going to try and justify his actions and I’m not saying you need to forgive him anytime soon but, d’you realise why he did it?” Crowley sniffled and shook his head.

“He was jealous too.” She said softly. “I’m sorry, I should have done something.”

He made a noise in the back of his throat.

“Jealous of what?” He croaked.

“I suppose that we have been spending more time together.”

“But that’s because you’re my _friend_.” Crowley said, pained.

“Maybe he didn’t know that. You two really need to get better at talking.”

Crowley found that particularly offensive given the current situation and let Anathema know by pulling away from her embrace.

“I don’t owe him anything.”

“No, you don’t. But you owe me enough to not go do something stupid. Please, Crowley, just go back to your dorm and go the fuck to sleep.”

The Hufflepuff gave a wet chuckle.

“You don’t even know I was gonna do something stupid.”

Anathema stared.

“Okay, fine! You got me, goodnight, geez.”

He could feel the girl’s eyes watching him as he walked back towards the front hall.

⁂

Aziraphale didn’t show up for breakfast the next morning. Not that Crowley was looking over at the Slytherin table, or anything. Unfortunately, none of them had (reliable) eyes and ears in Slytherin to investigate where he was hiding out. Newt appeared at the table, running late with his robe inside out, apologising profusely.

“I’m sorry Crowley, I swear that wasn’t my idea. I thought— well, I thought he took it too far, but I was too much of a coward to stand up to him.”

‘’S’alright,” the red head said through a mouthful of bacon. “I know you were just tagging along.” That’s all Newt ever seemed to do, tag along. He couldn’t execute a grand plan on that scale for all the galleons in Gringotts. At the moment, in Crowley’s opinion, it was one of his best qualities.

“Oh, good.” They sank in to a silence, punctuated by Newt scrambling to grab as much toast before the dishes were wiped clean. They met Anathema in the entranceway, Newt clutching slices of toast between his knuckles like some kind of awkward breakfast-loving wolverine. When he wasn’t automatically greeted by his girlfriend, the boy pouted. Anathema wasn’t as quick to forgive as Crowley. She regarded him with a cool silence, before linking her arm into Crowley’s and chattering about nothing specific.

Resigned to the treatment he probably deserved, Newt peeled off the group and made his way out of the castle, stopping on his way to Care of Magical Creatures to throw some toast to the giant squid. He hadn’t seen Aziraphale since he’d left the Slytherin on the astronomy staircase and suddenly felt guilty for abandoning him so quickly. Sure, he hadn’t totally agreed to Aziraphale’s plot, but the sight of Anathema and Crowley did make the boy feel insecure. He wasn’t the type to do anything about it. If his girlfriend was going to be stolen right out from under his nose, it was her choice. Everything was a lot clearer now, why Aziraphale had been so invested in their relationship in the first place and Newt wished the boy had just been honest.

All of this could have been solved by talking, he threw the last piece of toast violently at the water. Realising this, that Anathema probably hadn’t even thought of, Newt felt wise beyond his years.

Talking.

He was going to find Aziraphale and tell him how he felt about the whole situation.

So naturally he skipped Care of Magical Creatures.

He was more of a hazard than an asset to the class anyway, he reasoned.

⁂

Aziraphale hadn’t made it back to the Slytherin common room, rather, found comfort on stone floors in various degrees of freezing. He’d stayed at the Astronomy tower, glaring blankly at nothing, unable to form a coherent thought, until he heard voices in the corridor. Afraid that Crowley or Anathema was going to come back and (rightfully) yell at him, he slipped away and wandered the halls blindly until a tapestry swung open in the darkness. Cold, ominous, beckoning.

Without a second thought, Aziraphale went inside the small room and nearly cried out at what he saw.

There he was, looking back at him, but the Aziraphale in the mirror had an ethereal sort of glow. He looked softer, unburdened, kinder. Stepping closer the boy noticed that his reflection was wearing a Gryffindor robe and smiling brightly and Aziraphale _wanted_. It wasn’t that he wanted to be in the house so badly, it was just that the image looking back at him seemed to radiate goodness.

That was all he wanted. A guarantee that he wasn’t cunning and evil despite everything that had unfolded that evening.

He sat down on the cool floor and tried not to cry.

⁂

Newt had the sense of directions of a baked potato and wasn’t quite sure how he’d find the Slytherin in the crowded castle. Knowing his luck, Aziraphale would be locked up in the Slytherin common room. He wasn’t in class, he could determine that much, having braved the dungeons to peer in to the third year potions class. Newt knew his luck, and it was terrible, but there was another force acting that day. One could say it was an ineffable force. It was the pull of the tapestry of Eden that lead the Hufflepuff down corridors and up stairways until he was standing in front of it.

It swung open, and there was a black mass of robes curled up behind it.

“Aziraphale!” Newt rushed in. The boy stirred.

“What—“ he’d fallen asleep in front of the mirror, woken from nightmares of cruelty by the reassuring, unreachable image of his own innate goodness.

“What’s that?” His friend said, dumbstruck. The mirror showed Newt clutching a broomstick, glowing, anathema’s arms wrapped around him with a fierce pride.

“I made the team.” He whispered, almost lunging forward, as if touching the image might bring him closer to the reality. His attention was broken by a small sob from the floor.

“Oh,” he tore his gaze away, focusing on his friend, thoughts of standing up for himself lost as he saw Aziraphale crumpled on the ground. “Are you okay?”

What a stupid question, of course he’d not okay. Do something you fool!

“Did you want to talk about it?” Newt sank down and awkwardly patted the boy’s shoulder. Either the Hufflepuff would make an excellent therapist, or Aziraphale was so vulnerable he was beyond caring because he started talking. (It was definitely the latter but give the boy house points for effort)

“I’m bad. I’m a bad, evil, demon.” He spat out, lifting his face up from the floor. His eyes were puffy from crying, face red and generally looked like he’d been trampled by a hippogriff and then some.

Newt frowned.

“I think that’s a bit—“

“A bit what? A bit too lenient. If I was a dog they should put me down before I hurt someone else—“ he said bitterly. It didn’t take much social literacy to realise the boy meant it.

“Oh, fuck.” Newt scooted forward and wrapped his hands around the tangled mess. “You can’t say that.”

“Even if it’s true?”

“It’s not though.” Newt said firmly.

“Then why am I in Slytherin? What did the hat see in me except pure evil?” It was a flood of anxieties that had been stewing for years, the ones that he’d kept to himself and had kept him away from his family.

“For starters, you were so determined to help me get Anathema back.”

“You know I had other motives.” The blond said bitterly.

“Yes, I realise that now and I would have helped you, if you’d just told me!”

Aziraphale drew back, incredulous.

“Really?”

“Yeah, of course.” Newt rolled his eyes like it was the most obvious thing in the world. Because it was. “You two were made for each other. A universe where you don’t end up together isn’t a universe I was to live in. It’d just be wrong.”

Aziraphale gazed off in to the distance vacantly.

“Oh, I’ve really messed things up, haven’t I?”

Newt couldn’t lie, so he nodded slowly.

“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to drag you in to this. I didn’t think. I thought I had a good idea, it would work, and it did, but I didn’t think about how I was dealing with _people_.”

Newt shook his head.

“No, I get it. I would do anything for Anathema.”

Aziraphale paused and wiped his eyes.

“But she was with Crowley and you didn’t get involved?”

Newt laughed.

“Crowley’s never had eyes for anyone but you. I wasn’t remotely worried. Besides, Anathema’s a mother hen, she tends to take idiots like you and me and Crowley under her wing. I trust her.”

“_Oh_, _OH_. Well, I really have been a blind fool, haven’t I?” Aziraphale chuckled, then his face fell. “How on earth am I supposed to make this right?”

Newt dragged the boy to his feet.

“Actually, I have a few ideas to help with that. But first, you need to go have a shower and get something to eat.” He looked down at Aziraphale’s crumpled figure. “You look and smell like a hag.”

“Very perceptive, Newton, thanks for the assessment.” The Slytherin almost smiled.

They forgot to give a second glance at the mirror, too absorbed in their conversation to be distracted by the lure of the desires it had to offer.


	8. For Forgiveness's Sake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mark the date: Newt has an idea and (spoiler alert) it works.  
My boy is on fire.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Idiots" translation = socially and romantically repressed teenage boys
> 
> Also can you tell I know eff-all about plants and have little to no interest in researching rn, sorry!

Newt wasn’t about to forget this day. He’d put forward an idea and Aziraphale had jumped on it like a life raft, almost like the Slytherin trusted him.

Better not stuff this up.

The only issue was that he needed Anathema on side, and he’d spent the last few hours weaving through the halls trying to find her to no avail. He stopped dead in a 3rd floor corridor and rolled his eyes up to the ceiling. He did seem to be having a streak of good ideas, but he’d forgotten the obvious: of course she’d be in the library.

⁂

“What?” The Ravenclaw snapped, not even glancing up from her book. How she knew it was Newt lurking nearby was anyone’s guess, though the Hufflepuff had almost assumed she had some kind of psychic powers. “If you’re going to ask me to help you get those two idiots together, move along.”

There it was.

Newt mentally pivoted.

“No, it’s not that. I wanted to apologise to you.” This was enough for Anathema to look up, just to glare at him. He had a sinking feeling she knew that wasn’t what he’d come there to do but, to his surprise, she pulled out the seat next to her expectantly.

“Go on, I’m listening.”

Newt sat awkwardly.

“I was… jealous too when I saw you spending more time with Crowley.” He admitted. “It made me worry that I wasn’t enough for you. That’s why I agreed to help Aziraphale. I think, I thought, that maybe with the plan in place you might tell me the truth.”

“The truth?” Replied Anathema cooly. “And do tell me, what is the truth Newton?”

He glared at the table.

“Well, I just— I know we were friends for ages before and you know me so well, I can’t possibly see why you’d choose to be with me if not out of pity.” His voice wavered slightly.

“I’m not,” he waved his hands around vaguely. He wasn’t Crowley, with his constant jokes and unwavering kindness. He wasn’t Aziraphale, with his fastidious nature and endless knowledge. He certainly wasn’t a match for fierce, intelligent, beautiful Anathema, who was currently hunched over a book written entirely in greek and reading it with the ease of a magazine tabloid.

“I—“ she gaped at him, floundering for the right words. They didn’t come. Instead a tear slipped down her cheek, and she dragged her glasses from her face to mop it up. Fierce Anathema, who hadn’t cried when her mother passed (at least not in public) nor when her favourite Charms teacher retired, was crying in the middle of the library, lost for words.

“That’s— that’s,” she made a frustrated noise. “That’s so stupid Newt,” she slapped his shoulder half-heartedly. “My god, why am I surrounded on all sides by such idiots? How could you think that of yourself?”

All the boy could do was shrug.

“Can’t find much good about myself.”

He flinched as Anathema lunged forward and pulled him to his feet.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” She said, incredulous. (“Anathema, shhh this is a library,” the boy muttered.)

“No, no, I’m sorry I have some things to say. They’re going to hear it too.” She turned on heel and swept her dark hair back as she addressed the aisle.

“Good afternoon ladies, gentlemen and elves.” She nodded respectfully at one of the kitchen staff perusing the cooking section. “This is my boyfriend and he is the most loving, kindhearted and loyal person I’ve ever had the pleasure of meeting. He’s been patiently waiting for me to get my head out of my arse and start appreciating him for the exceptional human being he is. He’s also the best kisser ever, and I’m prepared to make that statement despite having limited data. If you’re feeling jealous, good, because he’s mine. Every single day I’m grateful that he puts up with my stubborn arse and so graciously lets me tell him stuff he probably already knows because, lord knows, I can be a show off.”

“I do know about the wizarding adaptations to the theory of natural selection,” he admitted quietly. “But I like hearing your voice.”

Anathema blushed, face quivering on a fresh round of tears.

“Oh, I love you.” She pulled her boyfriend in to a tight hug. “I really do. I want you to talk to me. I want you to let me know how you feel. I was so caught up in my own head I didn’t realise that I may have been distant. I don’t tell you enough how much you mean to me.” She whispered.

A warmth spread through Newt’s chest and he sagged in to the girl’s touch.

There was a loud cough and they broke apart.

Madam Pince was towering over them and the look on her face threatened to spit lightning blots.

“Sorry!” Newt squeaked.

“Banned!” She boomed, pointing a thin finger at Anathema. “Banned!”

Anathema’s bag and books collected themselves neatly, and slammed in to the girl with a force that sent her stumbling towards the door. Students who’d been watching the performance ducked their heads down, back to their work, as the couple were escorted to the door by a guard of fiercely animated objects.

Being banned from the library seemed like it should be a tipping point for the Ravenclaw. She had a lot of rage, after all, and Newt expected it to be exercised as soon as the two of them reached the hallway. Instead, she collected her stuff from where it had collapsed on the stone floor and linked an arm in to Newt’s.

“You okay?” He asked tentatively. The tenderness in the look she gave him nearly turned him to goo.

“Of course I am,” she smiled softly.

“Now, we’ve more idiots to set right.”

⁂

Anathema’s role was vital because, as Newt had accurately guessed, she was the only one Crowley trusted. She played up her annoyance with Newt when they were in public so that the other Hufflepuff didn’t get too suspicious so, when she asked him to meet her out in the grounds after lunch, he reluctantly agreed.

“What’s this?” he asked suspiciously as he arrived and was handed a pair of pruning snips.

She shrugged.

“Friend called in a favour.” They were walking towards the greenhouses.

“Friend?” The red hair growled, but he didn’t turn on heel and leave as they rounded the corner to see Newt and Professor Longbottom waiting patiently at Greenhouse 4.

“What’s this?” He repeated as Newt waved awkwardly.

Professor Longbottom was bouncing on his heels with excitement, and leapt forward when he saw Crowley.

“Anthony!” Crowley grunted, he’d long since resigned to the fact that the teachers wanted to call him by his first name.

“Actually, it’s Crowley.” Newt piped up confidently and he couldn’t help but give the boy a small smile for the effort.

“My apologies, Crowley, I was told you had a special interest in plants.” They seemed to be pointedly avoiding the incident where Crowley had stolen a plant from the greenhouses in first year and nearly died as a result. The boy had been so embarrassed, he’d dropped Herbology as soon as humanly possible, because he struggled to make eye contact with the professor. It was one of his biggest regrets, it being his favourite subject and all.

Crowley nodded slowly.

“Well, I need a research assistant, and you came highly recommended for the job.” Odd. The red head frowned at Newt, who was typically about as welcome at the greenhouses as he was, and had never said a word to the professor in his knowledge. Newt shrugged innocently.

“I’m doing some work on everlasting cacti. Well, everlasting in the sense that you can’t kill it unintentionally.” Spoken by a man who’d killed many a cactus. “I’ve decided to try cross breeding some of the typical varieties and then using a setting potion that enables them to become self sufficient. Theoretically, it should work, but there’s going to be a lot of tending to the plants in the early days and I need some help making the potion.” (Spoken by a man who’d melted many a cauldron in his time.)

Crowley couldn’t help but beam with excitement.

“I’d— I’d love to help!” His friends smiled.

“Well, I was going to get started now if—“ Crowley had already dashing into the greenhouse, looking at the cacti with a kind of reverence.

“Okay,” the Professor shrugged. “Seems like Aziraphale knew the right man for the job.”

He waved off the couple who would return to the warmth of the castle and pulled the door to. The Hufflepuff stood there, stiff with shock, knee deep in an assortment of plants and ferns.

“Aziraphale?”

The professor hummed as he started lifting pots on to the work bench.

“Aziraphale recommended me?”

“He was quite insistent, actually. If I’m completely honest I wasn’t going to take on a student as an assistant, he’s the one who pitched the idea to me. I assumed it was something he wanted to do but when I asked if he wanted to he was so quick to give your name instead it’s like he planned it all.”

“Planned it all,” the Hufflepuff murmured.

“Said that, despite your interesting history with the greenhouses, you were the most dedicated and hardworking of all the students and I should really consider. He said that you deserved forgiveness after your little transgression. I’m inclined to agree.” The professor smile wanly. “You can’t go to this school without a little disaster befalling you, it’s just unfortunate that it’s getting in the way of your dreams. I’d like to change that.”

Crowley nodded, unable to speak. His mind was whirring, emotions tangling and colliding at an alarming speed. Aziraphale had gone out on a limb for him. Aziraphale had tricked him. But here he was, laying his reputation with the professor on the line to get Crowley something he hadn’t even realised he’d wanted until now. It was like the angel knew him better than he did. This was the point where the hurt part of his brain rushed back in to remind the boy of what his friend had done. It was very cunning, and calculated, and with a mind like that, Crowley had no trouble seeing why the blond had ended up in Slytherin. But he was too, cunning and calculating, in getting the professor to take on a student. He’d squeezed forgiveness out of a part of life that Crowley thought he’d lost forever, with one stupid action. He was getting a second chance.

He wasn’t going to break that easily, he made up his mind. This one small gesture wasn’t enough for Aziraphale to earn his forgiveness, but part of him was finally revelling in what the boy had said that night. Even without the gentle push of a truth potion, Aziraphale had admitted that he had feelings for him.

_Aziraphale._

He grinned stupidly at the cactus he was potting.

Though he’d promised himself he wouldn’t break easily, he privately suspected one small smile from the angel and he’d forgive him the world over.


	9. Now Kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> *incomprehensible shrieking*  
Also, Anathema is 100% done with these love sick bois.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apologies, romance is (one of my) achilles heel, it's actually painful to write idk so much of this "slow burn" has just been me trying to avoid it. If you're wondering why all my fics are G or T rated it's because I'm an ace with a limited imagination who can only use "fuck" as an explicative in her writing. 
> 
> Added a couple more chapters, really want to flesh out the ending and put in enough fluff for the trials and tribulations you poor readers have gone through.

Aziraphale was hovering in the entrance hall as Newt and Anathema returned to the castle.

The boy jumped on them.

“What did he say? Is he angry? Is he going to work with the professor?”

Newt, the mastermind behind this little plan, nodded slowly.

“He took up the offer. I didn’t think it was the right time to let him know that you were the one who’d recommended him. Give him some time to settle down.”

The Slytherin’s face visibly fell and there it was, that almost possessive desire to get Crowley back. He didn’t want space, he wanted closeness and trust and _he’d really just stuff it all up, hadn’t he?_

Perhaps Anathema read the look on his face, because she offered her consolation.

“I don’t think you’ll have to wait very long. He’s a big softie.” She chuckled.

Aziraphale hoped she was right.

⁂

It had been two days since he’d begun in the greenhouses and Crowley was brimming with unbridled joy, walking around with a smile plastered on his face, spending time with Newt and Anathema despite the boy’s betrayal, and avoiding Aziraphale at all costs.

The latter was of some concern to Anathema. She knew she’d told Crowley to wait until he was ready to forgive his friend, but the longing looks across the courtyard at the blond who spent the recesses with his head buried in a book seemed to indicate he’d long since forgive him. The Hufflepuff with pining.

“Idiots,” she whispered under her breath as she broke away from the group, and Crowley’s pathetic mooning, and marched over to where the Slytherin was seated.

“For the love of every deity, I’ve had enough. He’s over there staring at you like you hung the stars or something, it’s painful to watch.”

“Huh?” Aziraphale looked up from his book in time to see Crowley hurriedly look away.

“I know I said to give him space but this is ridiculous.” She hauled the boy up and started dragging him over to where the others were standing.

“I don’t think—“ he spluttered but Anathema cut him off.

“None of you do, do you? Don’t think, don’t talk, just wait for the universe to sort itself out. Crowley, Aziraphale has some things he needs to say to you.” She pushed the Slytherin forward so that he almost stumbled in to Crowley.

“I— ah—“

Anathema was watching him expectantly. He half expected the girl to pull out some popcorn and kick back. No, this wouldn’t do.

“Did you want to go for a walk… alone?” He suggested and the other boy shrugged in agreement, unable to find words.

They headed down towards the forbidden forest in silence. The air had a chill to it that was threatening winter. Third year was rushing past them, and they were stuck on this one thing.

“I forgive you.” Crowley burst out, as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer. “I’ve thought about it and, whilst it was far from the best way to handle things, I think— I think it was nice that you cared so much.”

“Cared is a nice way to put it,” Aziraphale replied mildly, kicking at some grass so that he wouldn’t have to meet his friend’s eye.

“But you do!” Crowley’s hands gripped his arms, as the boy tried to make eye contact with him. “You do, that’s all you ever do. You care so bloody much about everything” _about me_ “that sometimes it’s almost overwhelming.”

Aziraphale’s lips turned downwards and he could see the boy’s brain already rejecting his words.

“Listen to me!” He shook him gently.

The blond shook his head, tears pooling at the corners of his eyes.

“No, Crowley, I’m evil.” He croaked. “It’s what the hat saw in me, it’s what I did to you and Anathema, you don’t want to be around someone like me.”

Crowley dropped his hands and swore at one nearby tree in particular.

“How can someone so smart be so stupid?” He hissed. This made his friend blink in astonishment.

“Excuse me?”

“You heard me. I don’t know where you’re getting this evidence from, that you’re evil and all. It’s pretty weak at best, that’s what it is. Angel, you’re filled with love. And you wonder why I call you angel? You’re considerate and warm and so so intelligent, when you’re not being stupid, and empathic and the last few years have been the worst of my life without you. I can’t keep doing it. It’ll break me to keep my distance from you.”

The Slytherin softened slightly.

“You don’t have to, to keep your distance,” he frowned. “In fact I’d very much like it if you didn’t. I just thought that… because of what I did.”

“Because of what you did I actually put my feelings out there. Probably saved us, uh, 6000 years of dancing around each other?” Crowley admitted.

Aziraphale bit his lip.

“So, you’re okay that I… know?”

“Okay, I’m fucking fantastic! Do you remember what you said?”

Aziraphale frowned, he’d been so caught up in worrying about losing Crowley that he couldn’t remember what he himself had said that night.

Realisation dawned on the red head’s face.

“Oooh, you don’t remember,” he rubbed his hands together mischievously. “Well, how do I break this to you gently, angel? You admitted that you looooove me.”

Aziraphale blushed.

“I don’t think that was quite what I said, dear.” But he grabbed the other by his robes and pulled him in closer, ghosting a hand over sharp cheeksbones.

“Can I?” He whispered, the Hufflepuff made a small keening noise before their lips pressed together and locked them in to a perfect embrace. And oh, it was wonderful, Aziraphale tried to find the words that had departed as

“Mmph,” Crowley wrapped long arms around him and pulled him in closer, so that their bodies were pressed together and the heat between them was intoxicating. It was unlike anything he’d felt with Helen, a feeling that was fresh and new and knocked the remaining breath from his lungs. It was addictive. Aziraphale’s presence was addictive and Crowley wanted to bask in the glow forever.

He frowned when the angel broke the kiss, immediately leaning back in, but the blond pouted.

“We have to go to class,” he said, still slightly breathless.

“Fuck that,” the Hufflepuff growled, but the other was straightening his robes and patting down Crowley’s hair.

“Mmm, I don’t think that’s quite the attitude I like in a man.” He teased. “Class is important,”

“You’re important,” Crowley breathed, and pressed a soft kiss to the boy’s cheek. He could see the Slytherin blush and try not to smile at the other’s forwardness.

“You know I’ve waited for this for a while.” He mused, not making any move to start walking back towards the castle. “Quite a while, in fact. And don’t quite think that Professor Binns has even realised he has an audience for his lectures on the goblin wars.”

He slipped a hand into Crowley’s.

“What do you say we continue our walk.”

And “walk” indeed they did.


	10. Fade Out the Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale and Crowley skip classes to make up, also featuring the return of BAMF Aziraphale and an unwelcome Peeves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW for mild homophobia

“Don’t touch,” Crowley whined and pulled his collar up self-consciously. They were sprawled out next to the lake, basking in sunshine, with class all but forgotten in the sweeping feelings of happiness that had overtaken the two. Aziraphale propped himself up and frowned.

“I think they’re beautiful. I think I told you that, in first year.” He murmured, hands gently tracing the gold lines of scars on Crowley’s neck. “Bit of an accident really… just sort of slipped out.” He chuckled sheepishly. “But I did mean it.”

Crowley sighed and unbuttoned his collar, giving the angel access to the spidery gold veins that traced over his collar bone. Aziraphale traced them hungrily with his fingers… up, up, up, the boy’s neck until his hand came to rest on the redhead’s cheek. The reverence had Crowley struggling to breathe. Nobody had ever looked at him like that, so warm and so wanting and it almost made him self-conscious.

“I— er— Madam Pomfrey mentioned there was an apocathery in Diagon Alley that might have something to help them fade.”

Aziraphale stilled, lips ghosting the other’s mouth.

“Is that what you want?” He whispered.

Crowley shrugged.

“I don’t know, it’d be nice to look normal.”

Suddenly Aziraphale swung his leg over, so that he was straddling the boy.

“Ah!” Taken by surprise, Crowley could feel himself blushing as the Slytherin pawed at his shirt. What on earth was he doing?

He pried open the top buttons and let out a small gasp when he saw the tangle of gold lines stretch across Crowley’s chest, sinking in to the spaces between his ribs and curling up around shoulders.

“You look like a sun gone supernova,” he breathed. “It’s almost blinding, how beautiful you are. With—“

He leaned over and nipped Crowley’s ear. The boy squeaked.

“—Or without your scars.”

He scraped hands through the boy’s long red hair and revelled in the way he leaned in to the touch. Needing. Wanting. And suddenly a memory was surfacing in Aziraphale’s mind, of Crowley in the same spot some years previously, rolling around on the grass with Helen. It did seem to hit the same nerve, of envy and shame, that it once did for the boy. In fact, as Crowley leaned in to his kiss, long fingers curling around the Slytherin’s neck, he got the feeling that Helen had never quite got what he was getting right now.

It felt a lot like love. Or as close to love as a fourteen-year-old can know.

⁂

They caught up with Newt and Anathema in the courtyard, the boys trying their best to keep a respectable distance from each other. It wasn’t that they didn’t want their friends to know, Crowley had just astutely pointed out that Anathema would become absolutely insufferable once the secret got out. They wanted a honeymoon period away from the girl’s self-righteous bragging. Of course, both had neglected to realise that Anathema was usually right for a reason. One of this skills that tended to work well in her favour was her powers of observation. They managed to pull the wool over her eyes for all of thirty seconds.

“Are you guys alright now?” She patted the ground and they took a seat. She wore the expression of a long-suffering relationship coach with a rather fickle set of clients, which was quite accurate, in her opinion.

“Yeah, we’re talking to each other again.” Aziraphale said solemnly. And we just skipped the last two periods to do some talking down by the lake, we’re getting quite good at it, he thought wryly, out of the corner of his eye he could see Crowley smirking slightly.

“What’s that?” The Ravenclaw’s hand darted forward to pull back Crowley’s collar.

“Hey,” he tried to bat her away, but not before she’d successfully revealed the small purple bruises that were beginning to form along the boy’s collar bone, tracing up a golden scar like stars settling in to alignment.

Newt gaped. Aziraphale blushed and looked to the sky, as if willing an omniscient God to take mercy on the two.

“Oh my fucking god!” Anathema cackled, a few nearby teachers shot her a warning look for the profanity. “Is that what I think it is…?” Her eyebrows almost reached her hairline as she looked back and forth between the boys.

Aziraphale, still praying to an absent God, chose to respond with a soft “Yes, dear, that is a love bite,” which sent Newt into a fit of giggles like a crazed first grader.

“Right,” Crowley reached out and pried Aziraphale’s hands apart so that he could slip his hand through one. “Cat’s out of the bag, no thanks to you.” He hissed at Anathema, but did a double take when it appeared the girl was crying.

“What—“ She was snivelling in to her robe in the most indecorous way. When she raised her head though, she worn a funny expression torn between delight and frustration.

“You absolute idiots.” She wept fondly. “Why did it take you so long?”

The question was rhetorical, but Crowley was still a little peeved that she’d grabbed at his collar.

“We’ve just been putting it off to wind you up.” He said slyly. This earned him a gentle slap and more mumbled explicatives from the girl.

⁂

The corridors were humming with rumours, that had begun when two third years had walked through the front doors hand-in-hand that afternoon.

It was a decision that maybe shouldn’t be made lightly, coming out in a rush to all their peers, but in light of their mutual confessions they were still caught up in the feeling of being wanted by the other. It was difficult to discern what the main point of contention was surrounding this new development. Most of the whispers were of the innocent, fact-spreading which were met with some positive responses from other students. Naturally, though, the negative comments were the ones that continued bouncing around the castle long after they’d been said. Anyway, point of contention:

Historically, Hogwarts had seen few-to-none same sex couples.

Historically, or at least according to the Ministry’s census, a relationship between a Hufflepuff and a Slytherin was equally as rare.

The bigots who focussed on the latter point, Anathema had happily dubbed the “neo-bigots” within a few hours of the rumours spreading.

“It’s interesting.” She leaned over her dinner. She’d somehow used her prefect charm to get a seat on the Hufflepuff table. “Even with muggles, homophobia is not as big a deal as it once was a century ago. Just in Tadfield, there’s an awesome lesbian couple who own the nursery and nobody gives them any shit.” She picked over her vegetables. “Rightly so, of course. But wizards always love to brag about how they’re five steps ahead of the muggles at all times, and yet some morons around here are getting hung up about two guys holding hands.

But! You see I’ve been reading a lot about house prejudice. It’s interesting, it’s almost like a sort of parallel for the LGBT+ movement, but more culturally specific.”

She looked up. Newt’s eyes had glazed over. At least Crowley seemed to be listening.

“There’s always been this segregation between the houses and, I must say, very little has ever been done to remedy it. A Slytherin liking a Hufflepuff, why it’s almost scandalous to some of these people.” She spoke rather loudly, raising her voice above the din as if challenging any disapproving eavesdroppers to a fight.

“Hang on, hang on.” Crowley put down his cutlery. “Why do you say a Slytherin liking a Hufflepuff? What about the other way around?”

“That’s the thing.” She slammed her hand on the table, eyes glinting manically. “It’s because of the headology of the houses. We’re conditioned to see Hufflepuff’s as liking everyone, as being kind and loyal whilst Slytherins are supposed to be cold and aloof. For some reason it’s easier to believe that a Hufflepuff likes a Slytherin and it’s not necessarily requited because that’s just the way we’re taught to think about things. It’s crazy how much this place brainwashes you.”

She went back to her lamb until Newt’s elbow found her ribs.

“Ow, hey—“ she looked up to see Crowley paler than the mashed potato sitting on his plate. “Oh, shit. Crowley I didn’t mean it like that, of course he likes you.” But the redhead had slipped out of his seat and was lost in the crowd.

“Fuck!” She slapped a hand to her head and looked over at her boyfriend desperately. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t think—“

Newt smirked.

“Nice to know sometimes you fudge it too. Makes you more human.” He leaned over and rested a head on her shoulder. “I don’t think you need to be too worried anyway.”

He was watching the Slytherin table, where Crowley had rushed over to probably check that Aziraphale actually liked him, the insecure bastard.

He could see white curls bobbing as the Slytherin rose from his seat and suddenly there was a wolf whistle and a series of gasps.

“Oh my god, they’re kissing. They’re kissing in the middle of dinner.” Newt shook with laughter.

Somewhere on the Slytherin table, a group of boys started to boo. All evidence would state that it was Hastur who initiated the call, but it rapidly overtook much of the rest of the table. Aziraphale had undoubtably arrived at that conclusion, because he broke away from Crowley and leapt on to the bench, eyes flashing furiously.

“Hastur,” he roared, scanning the faces. Hastur’s loyal gang members snickered and pointed out the boy. Aziraphale’s wand was in his hand, sparks flying out the end.

“No, no, no.” Crowley scrambled forward to grab him, but the angel had already stepped up on to the table, feet crushing goblets and cutlery as he stalked down the middle like a predator stalking his prey.

“I don’t want to be pushed around by you anymore. And I don’t want to have anything to do with your family. I don’t want to be on your side, Crowley’s twice the family you lot will ever be and yet you refuse to have anything to do with him—“

“Snivelling fagg—“ Hastur muttered to himself, but Aziraphale didn’t let him finished as the he raised his wand and yelled an incomprehensible spell.

There was a bang, and a pop, and a small croak as Hastur was replaced with an oversized, muddy brown frog.

There were shouts of laughter. Some of the teachers had jumped up and were rushing forward.

“Angel, what did you do?” Crowley nearly wept tears of joy seeing his brother begin to hop away.

“I— I—“ Aziraphale stepped down off the table, looking slightly shocked at his own outburst. Students nearby were trying to shake his hands, slapping him on the back, the rumours forgotten as the Slytherin had taken down one of the castle’s biggest bullies.

As a confession of devotion to Crowley. The doubts in his mind flooded away, as he help Aziraphale to the floor.

“You’re quite hot when you’re angry.” The Hufflepuff whispered coyly as the blond straightened his robes.

He blushed.

“I wasn’t about to let him get away with that.” He replied matter-of-factly.

“My hero.” Crowley said sappily, linking his arm in with Aziraphale’s and guided them out of the chaos before a teacher could turn up to start handing out detentions.

⁂

They strolled down the empty corridors, noise in the distance gradually abating. Just as Crowley opened his mouth to speak, though, there was a shrill whistling noise and another pop as Peeves appeared hanging above them.

“Ah little lovebirds, so I heard the rumours were true.” He sniggered.

“What do you want, Peeves?” Crowley snapped, heart sinking slightly.

“Why Mister Crowley, you must know I’d catch up with you eventually. I’ve come to collect. The favour you so generously offered me in turn for saving your little pet.”

He raised translucent eyebrows at Aziraphale and the boy frowned.

“I figured since you two are practically joined at the hip now that this is a sweet two-for-one offer.”

Crowley growled.

“No, you’re not dragging him in to it.”

Peeves sighed and shrugged.

“Well, too bad I have a two person job. Old peevesy can’t get involved around there, so it needs to be two students. Plus…”

He paused, swooping towards them dramatically.

“There’s something at stake for the both of you.” He leered. “I want you to bring some things in to the castle for me.”

“Things?” Aziraphale squeaked. “Like, illegal things?”

Peeves scoffed.

“Nothing’s illegal if you don’t get caught, sonny.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm soft for BAMF Aziraphale.   
Bonus points if you picked up the vague STP/Discworld reference Anathema made. I have a very interesting trajectory for her character in the next few chapters.  
Almost wrapping up, we're reaching the final crisis (which thankfully should be far less painful now that these idiots have admitted their feelings), only a couple more chapters to go!  
Thanks so much for all the support and on my last HP fic, I've been positively overwhelmed by the reception. Hopefully the conclusion will leave you satisfied :)


	11. Deal with the Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The friends start smuggling illegal goods. Peeves isn't as transparent a business partner as he looks.

“What did you do?” Aziraphale hissed as Peeves bounced away.

Crowley watched the poltergeist retreat, looking like he was going to be sick.

“I, uh—“ Crowley realised the Slytherin had dropped his hand, and was now glaring at him. Oh, Aziraphale can’t be mad. He thought desperately. He’d made a deal to save him, even if he hadn’t quite known it was him who needed saving from Hastur that night.

“I agreed to do a favour for Peeves if he broke up the fight between you and Hastur,” he glared at the ground. “No, sorry, I don’t think fight is quite the right word. He was torturing you.”

He wasn’t surprised that the blond looked angry.

“You made a deal with the devil so that Hastur would leave me alone?” The hard lines on his face told Crowley his friend didn’t think much of that idea.

“I didn’t think it’d be _this_.” He protested, flapping the piece of parchment they’d been given. An order form for Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes, every product that had ever been banned by the caretaker carefully itemised. “I don’t want to run a black market. I didn’t realise Peeves had business ventures, I thought he was just like,” he trailed off “mostly harmless,”

Aziraphale scoffed, but seemed to soften slightly as he took the parchment back.

“I know how we can get these.” He said thoughtfully.

Crowley spluttered.

“What you actually think we should do it?”

The Slytherin glared at him.

“What do you think he’d blackmail us with?” The poltergeist had hinted at having something to hold over both of them, but nothing came to mind and they’d been almost too afraid to ask.

“Whatever it is, it’s probably enough to get us expelled.” Aziraphale said bitterly.

Crowley made an indignant noise.

“I’ve never done anything worth getting expelled over.”

His friend levelled him with a wry stare.

“Alright, fine we’ll do it.” The redhead sighed.

-

The perks of having access to the greenhouses was they were an excellent place to talk, if one was able to ignore the needy plants that clambered for attention, poking you with vines and coiling around your arms. Crowley, ever traumatised by his incident in first year, had intimidated the plants in to leaving him alone, which meant that when the four friends met in Greenhouse 5, Newt bore the brunt of the plants’ affections, which gave the impression of three friends and a sentient bush conversing in low, hushed tones.

The bush sneezed.

“He wants you to what?”

“Smuggle stuff in to the castle,” Crowley sighed. Anathema was inspecting the list they’d been given, brow furrowed.

“This stuff is dangerous,”

“Yeah, obviously,” Crowley snapped, snatching the parchment away and reading aloud. “Knock off love potions, knock off truth potions, knock off Felix Felicies. Who knows what goes in to this shit.”

“I wonder if it works?” Mused the bush.

Anathema frowned further.

“I wouldn’t put that stuff in your body. It’s probably made from dragon dung or something.”

“But if it works…” the bush received a slap from his girlfriend and some of the vines retracted grumpily.

“I’m talking about the Felix Felicies, of course.” Newt remedied hastily. “I could do with some luck.”

Aziraphale sighed. “We all could right now.”

“But what is he threatening?” Anathema demanded “Surely he can’t have enough dirt on you two that would put you in a worse position than getting caught with this.”

The boys shrugged.

“So you’re just going to take his word for it, when he hasn’t even made a proper effort to blackmail you?” She snorted.

Crowley mumbled something about “not wanting trouble,”

“Well, that’s what you’re heading for!” She said shrilly. “Look, fine, we’ll help” (“We?” The bush squeaked.”) “If you find out what that floating plastic bag is trying to threaten you with.”

It was simple enough, Aziraphale had reasoned. He knew a secret passageway down to Hogsmeade. He could submit an order and have it delivered straight to the entrance of the passage, and be there to meet it. Everything was so streamlined now the owl mail order was the norm. He and the others could smuggle it back in and then… then what? Peeves hadn’t given them any further instructions. Did he want them to sell it? Or was that his role? The whole situation gave the Slytherin a headache, which only doubled when he realised how easily he’d come up with this method of subterfuge. It was eerily cunning. He curled in on himself as the others continued to talk.

As if sensing something was wrong, Crowley reached out and laid a hand on the boy’s knee, giving it a tight squeeze. Amber eyes flickered over his face, a silent question. Aziraphale didn’t want to fall apart in front of them.

He scrambled up and left the greenhouse, Anathema trailing off in surprise as the blond took leave.

“Hang on a sec,” Crowley muttered and chased after his friend.

“Hey, hey, hey.” He caught the hem of Aziraphale’s robes and tugged him backwards. “What’s happening?” Aziraphale turned, dark frown settled on his face. He looked on the verge of tears, frightened but also wretched and terrifying. It made Crowley take a step back. He’d never seen his friend look so sombre.

The grief only deepened as the red head moved away. It caused Aziraphale to flinch as if he’d been burned, or maybe as if he was the one doing the burning. It was unintentional. He didn’t mean to be like this. _Please_. He took the look on Crowley’s face to mean fear and repulsion, rather than perhaps the shock that it had been. It fit in to his narrative, one that had been stewing for a while now and was finally unfolding.

“I’m evil.” He confessed, eyes downcast. To his surprise, Crowley stepped closer, so that they were now almost flushed against each other.

“I don’t think so,” he replied softly, brushed away white gold curls.

“But I am!” It was the same voice Aziraphale used when he recited facts about Hogwarts or told someone they were wrong, matter-of-fact and self assured. “That’s what the hat saw in me. I spent so long trying to deny that’s who I was, but I can’t avoid it. I can’t avoid it anymore.” He swayed slightly, as if considering collapsing in his friend’s arms and thinking better of it. He was the one doing the burning.

Crowley sighed. If it were anyone but the angel, he’d be unwilling to entertain this circular logic. But he’d known Aziraphale long enough. Long enough to know the boy had never quite forgiven himself for joining Slytherin. It was absurd really, the double standard he held himself to. He’d had no issue with the idea that Crowley wanted to be sorted in to Slytherin. It was like the outcome struck the deepest fear the blond had held about himself. It’s true, you can’t be cunning without being smart, but it’s so easy to ruminate too much on it. To moralise and analyse, and worry that your intelligence is being used for cruelty or evil. Wouldn’t it be easier to just do things, without worrying about your moral compass? Crowley figured he’d get a scathing answer if he asked that, so he closed the gap and let Aziraphale bury his head in the boy’s shoulder.

There was no point in arguing with the angel, because Crowley could see that the insecurity lay in the boy himself rather than the house he’d ended up in. Aziraphale didn’t believe that the others were evil (except, well, maybe Hastur) rather, he used his fate to bolster his own self-doubt. The thought that Aziraphale could dislike himself when Crowley saw him as a radiant beam of sunshine made Crowley’s eyes fog up.

“Are you crying too?” Aziraphale sniffed, pulling himself back.

Crowley gave a watery laugh.

“Just thinking that the last person to go evil out of all of us would be you.” He pointed out. “You’re devious, brave, intelligent, sure. But not evil. Never evil.” He leaned in and brushed a kiss to blond curls.

“That’s what I love about you,”

There was a sharp intake of breath, as stormy blue eyes travelled over Crowley, as if searching for insincerity. They wouldn’t have found it.

Aziraphale looked at the ground coyly, cheeks flushed.

“Besides, I still like to think of myself as the foremost purveyor of trouble in these parts.” Crowley joked.

“You do end up in a lot of messes,” Aziraphale giggled.

“You love me for it.” He teased, and grabbed the other’s hand to lead them both back to the greenhouse.

-

Aziraphale picked out an ageing barn owl to send his order to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes. Despite what Anathema had said about tracking down Peeves, the boys had gone out of their way to avoid him.

“It doesn’t matter what he’ll do to us. It’ll be trouble and a half,” Crowley had muttered. “Might as well just do as we promised.”

So they’d lied to Anathema. Peeves knew things that could get them expelled. She’d narrowed her eyes and looked between the two.

‘I don’t even want to ask,” she’d sighed in resignation and pulled out some parchment to draft an order form.

-

“What’s that?” They arrived near the one-eyed witch statue with Crowley carrying a stoppered test tube.

“Stink bombs!” He grinned and Aziraphale groaned.

“I told you to learn a spell that would repel people from the area for half an hour. I got you the book from the library and everything!”

Crowley shrugged. As if he was going to learn for the sake of it.

“Fine,” the Slytherin hissed and Crowley passed the test tube over to Newt, who took it gingerly and held it at arms length.

“So you and Anathema stand watch, when you hear us tapped in the passageway, let off the stink bomb.” Aziraphale’s lip curled. “And help us bring the packages up. We’ll put them in that broom cupboard for the time being.” He indicated a nearby door. The group all nodded and Aziraphale and Crowley clambered in to the tunnel.

“Back in half an hour!” Crowley winked and the two boys disappeared.

-

The delivery man was rather skeptical about being ordered to wait in the Honeyduke’s cellar. Unsurprisingly, though, the owners had gotten used to dodgy student deliveries passing through their back room, and so had become friendly with the man who spent most of his time flying packages from Diagon Alley to their cellar. Aziraphale handed over a fistful of galleons (“Peeves better pay us back.” Crowley had muttered.” And signed for the goods. They were two rather heavy, bulky boxes that were difficult to fit in to the tunnel. With much huffing and puffing, the boys settled on kicking them down the passageway.

‘Oh, this is bloody ridiculous!” Aziraphale exclaimed. ‘Wingardium Leviosa.” His box hovered a few feet above the ground. Crowley made a noise of exclamation and imitated him.

“I feel like we don’t use magic enough for wizards.” He commented as they marched down the corridor, boxes floating in front of them.

Aziraphale tutted.

“It’s because you refuse to learn any new spells.” He pointed out and Crowley went silent.

-

When they arrived back at the statue, Aziraphale rapped on the stone with his wand. A series of knocks answered him. Anathema’s code. Light spilled in to the tunnel as the witch moved out of the way. The boys hauled the boxes up and emerged to find Anathema hovering anxiously over them.

“Is everything okay?” shot Crowley.

‘Yes,” she said with a strained smile. “Slight hiccup but the stink bomb’s gone off and no students are around.”

“No students?” Crowley said slowly and glanced around wildly, as if expecting teachers to come jumping out from every available hiding spot. The hallway was empty. Anathema started to push one of the boxes towards the broom cupboard, before promptly realising that she too was a witch and levitating it.

“Peeves dropped by,” she whispered. “I had to tell him what we were doing because he was going to tattle on us. Said we were helping with the favour for him, so I think that’s got him off our back.”

Aziraphale nodded sagely.

“He wouldn’t want to stuff this up.”

They stashed the boxes in the cupboard, next to cleaning supplies such that they blended in easily.

“I could always transfigure them,” Anathema mused, fingering her wand.

“Into what? Tell me, what would be less conspicuous in a cupboard than those boxes?” Crowley snapped and so she left it alone.

“Better go find Newt,” she sighed, admiring their handiwork and backing out of the cupboard.

There was a loud cough behind them and they turned in horror.

Peeves hung gleefully in the air beside an outraged looking Professor Sprout, who held Newt by the neck of his robes.

“Aw, ickle students bringing in banned goods.” Peeves smirked. “I told the Professor here that I had some information that could get you expelled. Well, the two lover boys at least. What a treat, 4 for the price of 2.”

He stretched himself out and grinned widely at the shocked faces before him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In class so will fix the formatting later. Enjoy!


	12. Cause and Affect

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Aziraphale goes in to lawyer-mode. Crowley asks an important question. Anathema swears in front of teachers, as she wont to do.

“My office, now!”

Professor Sprout waved her wand and the offending boxes vanished. Peeves blew raspberries as the four trailed away from the scene of the crime.

Crowley made a pained noise.

“He set us up.”

“No shit.” Anathema hissed. “What’s going on?”

With a sinking feeling, Crowley realised how painfully naive they’d been… stumbling in blindly to Peeves’ plan which, paradoxically, had been the blackmail he’d referred to.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered to the others, but nobody would look at him.

“Stop talking!” The professor barked and hustled them forward towards her office.

-

Professor Sprout’s office was stuffed with verdant plants, clustered around comfy armchairs. If it were any other situation, Crowley would have asked the Professor about the small rainforest she’d cultivated in her space but her face was like a thunder cloud as she sat down behind her desk. As if sensing the gravity of the situation, the plants began to shiver as their owner radiated anger.

The four students cowered in front of her.

“Explain.” The boxes were already on her desk, and she was pulling out boxes and boxes of unbranded potions.

There was silence.

“This is contraband that carries the risk of expulsion for any student’s found supplying it to others. This is a very grave situation. You best get talking.” She growled.

Aziraphale took a deep breath and stepped forward.

“Newt and Anathema had nothing to do with this. They didn’t know what we were bringing in to the castle. Well, we told them we were getting lollies from Honey duke’s.” He stammered. The professor regarded Newt, who was crying in to Anathema’s shoulder and her face softened.

“You need to choose your friends wisely.” She groused and waved them off. The two scurried to the door, Anathema mouthing “thank you” to Aziraphale as she bundled her boyfriend out the door.

“So,” the Professor pursed her lips, she nodded at the armchairs opposite her desk. “You two. Been causing quite a stir lately.”

In a somewhat bold move, the boys both sat down on the same couch, shoulder to shoulder and hand in hand.

“You’ve put me in a difficult situation.” She groaned, putting her head in her hands. Crowley gave his friend a questioning look, but Aziraphale was shaking his head. They were about to be expelled, cast out in disgrace. He thought of dragging his trunk home and begging Gabriel and his parents to take him back. Was a son sent home in disgrace better than having a son in Slytherin house? It was an interesting question, but he didn’t have time to think about it, because suddenly Crowley broke the silence.

“Aziraphale didn’t have anything to do with it either.” The redhead burst out frantically. “You can’t expel him, he wasn’t involved.” The professor shook her head.

“You don’t expect me to believe that, do you Anthony? I can accept that Newton and his friend were tempted in to your little scheme, but you two seem to be partners in crime.”

_Partners in crime._

The Hufflepuff swallowed and let go of Aziraphale’s hand.

“I forced him to.” He said levelly, beside him the other made a small noise. “I threatened to break up with him if he didn’t help me get the goods in to the castle.”

Professor Sprout looked horrified.

“Anthony Crowley, that is not what we stand for in this house! In this school! Frankly, if what you say is true, I am extraordinarily disappointed in you. This is bullying of the worst kind.”

“He didn’t say anything like—“ Crowley kicked him.

The professor frowned.

“Poor dear, don’t feel the need to defend Mr. Crowley. Here, have a biscuit.” A large biscuit tin on her desk floated towards the blond and began nudging him gently until he took a custard cream. The boy shoved the whole biscuit in his mouth in an attempt to calm his nerves. What endgame was Crowley aiming for?

“As it stands, Crowley, you’re facing expulsion for distribution of banned goods and a very serious case of bullying another student. Aziraphale, you’ll receive a warning, bring this stuff to the attention a professor before it gets out of hand.”

The Professor shuffled some papers on her desk awkwardly.

“As your head of house, I’m very disappointed.” She said gravely. “I was quite heartened to hear you’d broken the family tradition, Anthony. Despite a few slip ups, you’ve been a good student, surprisingly… Until now.” She added hurriedly.

“I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask Mr Fell to leave whilst we sort out the details of your return to London. I will send an owl to your family in advance to expect your return.”

“Wait, doesn’t he get a trial or something?” Aziraphale leapt to his feet indignantly.

The professor paused.

“I guess for fairness’ sake, I could allow it.”

“Great, I’ll be defending him, can we have a minute for a sidebar?”

She nodded and regarded the Slytherin with an air of curiosity.

“Angel, what are you doing?” Crowley hissed as he was dragged behind a rather large monstera plant.

“I don’t know, buying us some time.” He said desperately, tears forming in his eyes. “I can’t be here without you. I can’t have you expelled all because you were trying to protect me.”

Crowley leaned in and swept his friend up in a big hug.

“This is my fault. Besides, I’d do anything to protect you. You’re brilliant, you belong here, the wizarding world needs more people like you, Aziraphale. And, hey, so what I didn’t graduate? I’ll get a job down at the Three Broomsticks and you can see me every Hogsmeade weekend.”

He tried to sound optimistic but Aziraphale just dissolved in to tears.

“No, no, no. It’s not good enough.” He pressed a kiss to Crowley’s forehead. “I’m going to save you.”

He wiped his tears on his sleeve and stepped out from behind the plant. Professor Sprout was hovering awkwardly next to her desk, uncertain as to what was unfolding in front of her.

“Well,” Aziraphale said brusquely. “Shall we get started? Can I please hear the accusations again?” They returned to their seats, Crowley watching the blond out of the corner of his eye and marvelling, the angel would make a good lawyer.

He wasn’t at all prepared for what came next.

“So you’re saying that, by possessing contraband Weasley products, with the intent to distribute, Crowley faces expulsion?”

The Professor looked like she had something to add.

“We’ll get to the bullying part later,” Aziraphale brushed it off.

“Then yes, it’s been written in to the school rules for the last decade. A specific, itemised list, of which I think you have all of them.” She peered into a box.

Aziraphale jumped to his feet and began to pace.

“Crowley, what were your intentions with the potions you brought in to the castle?”

“Errr…”

“Did you have a plan for them, other than to put them in the broom cupboard in which you were caught?”

Crowley shrugged.

“Did you intend to sell them to your fellow students?”

He shook his head.

Professor Sprout crossed her arms and watched Aziraphale curiously.

“Say, hypothetically, you were going to sell one of these—“ he picked up a love potion and threw it to the Hufflepuff. “How much would you sell it for?”

Crowley frowned, and suddenly Aziraphale’s line of reasoning became clear.

“Uhhh, 1 sickle each?” He hazarded.

“Point made.” The blond snatched the box back and dumped it in front of Professor Sprout. “Crowley could not have been smuggling the items with the intent to distribute because he just outrageously undervalued this galleon’s worth of smuggled goods. Maybe a galleon and two sickles if you’re feeling enterprising.

Furthermore, I believe the school rules prohibit distributing and taking illicit substances. Crowley, have you ever taken any of these products yourself? Of course not, the boxes were unopened when you found us, madam.”

Crowley’s heart soared as the Slytherin beamed at him. Professor Sprout was shaking her head in disbelief.

‘I must say, Mr Fell, you make a great case.”

The pressure that had building in Crowley’s chest subsided somewhat, and he allowed himself a small smile. How was his boyfriend so bloody smart all the time? They actually had a chance to stay together. Then his mind backtracked slightly, realising that he’d referred to Aziraphale as his boyfriend. Was that okay? He wanted to close the distance and ask the boy himself, but it was hardly the time, but it made him feel all the more apprehensive about the head of house’s decision.

“I would be happy to absolve Mr Crowley from this misstep on the basis of this logic.” The professor cleared her throat and shifted the hat that perched atop her flyaway hair. “However there is also the case of the—“

Aziraphale was laughing, eyes crinkled in mirth, drowning out the rest of the professor’s accusation.

It made Crowley’s heart clench in his throat, just a little, he’d never seen his friend so outwardly disrespect a teacher. Perhaps he’d lost his mind. But the Professor waited patiently until the boy stopped laughing, lips pursed, and heard what he had to say.

“Crowley didn’t do anything of the sort. In fact, if he has to be guilty of anything, it’d be being too nice to me.” Aziraphale swallowed and glanced over at the boy. “…Even when I don’t deserve it. Even when I broke his trust, I got a second chance. Every time I doubted myself, and who I was, and who I was meant to be, he was there.” He wiped away a tear.

“And you can’t send him away because if you do I’m leaving too.” His voice rose, fists balling in anger.

“Okay, okay.” The Professor jumped up from behind her desk and crossed the room to embrace the Slytherin. “I’m sorry I ever doubted him. I must say, you two are very lucky to have each other. I think I remember Newton saying something to that effect way back years ago, that you boys were soulmates. After that performance, I quite believe it now.” Aziraphale let out a shaky laugh in to her robe.

“I don’t suppose you’d believe that Peeves set us up for all that?” Crowley offered. The professor grimaced.

“Now that you mention it, I’m quite sorry I ever doubted you. A dark day it is when a member of staff relies on that man for information.”

Aziraphale bounded towards Crowley and threw his arms around the boy’s shoulders.

“My guardian angel,” Crowley whispered into the mass of curls that tickled his nose and leant down to press a gentle kiss to the boy’s lips.

“Alright, alright,” The professor clapped goodnaturedly. “That’s quite enough, out of my office.”

They stumbled out in to the corridor, still wrapped in each other’s arms, bumping directly in to Newt and Anathema, who’d been listening at the door.

“Well?” Anathema’s glasses had slipped down, eyebrows raised in surprise.

“It’s all tickity-boo.” Grinned Aziraphale. Crowley sniggered at his choice of phrasing.

“Tickity-boo. Merlin’s beard Angel, I don’t think that was ever in fashion.”

Aziraphale swatted him.

“I’ll have you know I invented it myself.”

The friends strolled up the corridor, but Crowley tugged on Aziraphale’s sleeve, holding him back.

“I was thinking in there,” he began, biting his lip nervously. “Well, my brain was doing the thinking without me and I guess I was wondering, would it be okay if I called you my boyfriend?”

Aziraphale beamed.

“Only if I can call you my boyfriend.”

“Of course, angel.”

With all the subtly and decorum she was know for, Anathema paused as she and Newt were about to round the corner.

“Oi! Stop snogging you idiots, we’re going to fucking celebrate!”

From inside her office, Professor Sprout tutted at the exclamation but didn’t bother to go reprimand the girl. Anathema was good with the mandrakes after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look BAMF!Aziraphale never left the building, what a legend!
> 
> Last chapter will be a wrapping up and then maybe an epilogue afterwards. This series has been an excellent distraction from all of my uni responsibilities but alas it's getting to couch time and I'm very behind, but I wouldn't go back and do it again, I've loved writing it so much and loved all of your comments <3 thanks for following along!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on Tumblr at [@sorrens](https://sorrens.tumblr.com)
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please feel free to browse my other Good Omens fics. I've written a few AUs, some angst, some crack, some questionable use of internet humour, basically ineffable husbands in many flavours.


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